


The Age of Heroes

by iFluffySquirrel



Series: The Child of Nike [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But we try not to bash here, Chapter 25 there goes canon, Civil War Team Iron Man, Comic Book Science, Comic book logic, Gen, More characters to come, POV Third Person Limited, Question Everything, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, because they can, but it's in my crosshairs, demigods are gonna do, even if OC is 22-23, how many references can my OC come up with, just question, limping off into the underbrush, minus the obvious, mostly - Freeform, small changes add up, so my girl is biased, we aren't rocking the canon boat too hard yet, we'll finish it off later, writing action is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 204,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26846635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iFluffySquirrel/pseuds/iFluffySquirrel
Summary: Two Years. Cas has known her father for almost two years.It's been two years since Gaea curb stomped her life and three since Kronos did the same. Damn. (The Triumvirate isn't worth mentioning...)She's settled in to her new status quo and she's really happy with it. The other demigods are enjoying the fruits of their labor with an unprecedented period of growth and safety. It's awesome.So of course, the Fates decide that things were a little too settled.Aliens seem like a good idea. Sure, lets go with that one.
Series: The Child of Nike [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804345
Comments: 189
Kudos: 151
Collections: Marvelous Mess, Yubi SW





	1. The New Normal

**Author's Note:**

> GUYS!!!! We made it to the Avengers. This one is going to be hella long.
> 
> So! Timelines! Timelines are important as far as movie order is concerned I will be obeying the official MCU movie & TV series timeline available online. I use the site Pocket-Lint.com. This matters because this story will cover up until the events of Age of Ultron. (That's a lot but it's already broadly outlined so I know we can do it.)
> 
> Updates should be Monday and Friday unless something changes.
> 
> Reminder: the previous two installments covered Aug 2010-June 2011 and now we are in May 2012. It's a big month for the MCU.

“Drop!” Cas hits the ground rolling as a barb flies over her head and hits the wall of the old warehouse behind her. There’s yet another hole torn into the new jacket that Pepper got her for Christmas this past year which is really just mean. It was a very nice jacket and now Cas is going to have to explain to the Queen herself why it looks like she got into a fight with a lion.

Plot twist, not a lion.

It’s godsdamned manticores with a grudge. Evidently, there are close familial ties between manticores and Mr. Thorn has siblings which is just brilliant. She wasn’t even involved in that fight because she was at school. Gods….And it's been years, not that immortal energy constructs of pure freaking spite and revenge would notice.

The ragged evil talking cat/scorpions were kind enough to attack on the water though so when Cas asked for backup in saving the baby demigods and the goat boy it was Percy who volunteered to help. So when Cas dropped to the ground to dodge the kitty harpoon there was a flood of water comparable to a firehose available to slam into the side of said manticore. Has she mentioned that Percy has a thing about manticores? It likely has something to do with the fact that one kidnapped Annabeth when they were kids.

She should back up.

It’s been a bit of a day.

~~~

“Have you given any thought to what you want to major in?” She glances at her passenger who’s staring not very patiently out the window, “I know you’re doing undecided now but you’ll need to pick eventually.” Also, Percy is laid back but he’s not the type of person to sit there and let Annabeth bring in all of the money. He’s going to want to work one day.

“Can’t I just study fish or something?” He’s uninterested in this conversation which is fair given their current destination but they have a few more minutes before they’re close enough to go on foot.

“Oceanography is a good field. Not very practical for a landlocked university in New Rome though.”

An hour ago Cas got a call from a pretty frantic satyr about being cornered while trying to sneak a few runaway demigods through to Camp Half-Blood. They made it to Brooklyn before realizing that the Navy Yard is a bit occupied by some frustrated monsters that can’t get into Manhattan proper. This satyr had best have a brilliant excuse for why he didn’t come by Lamark High-Rise and ask one of the older demigods to drive them directly to camp. 

Now, Cas is creatively driving in mid afternoon traffic praying that they can get there in time to prevent several unnecessary deaths. There’s a van booking it from Camp Half-Blood to the Navy Yard as well but Cas and Percy will be getting there first meaning they get to protect the little demigods and fight the monsters until their Camp Half-Blood transport shows up.

“Maybe ocean conservation?” Hey, that could work for him, “But same problem if I want to stay in New Rome.” Or he could transfer. There’s plenty of Greeks that started there this past fall and there’s quite a few Romans who chose to come out to NYC. It’s not like he has to represent anymore. If a son of Poseidon wants to study the ocean no one is going to to kick up a fuss about it.

“Ah-ha, I see that Grover has finally converted you to his Satyr ways of going green.”

“Best friend, empathy-link, it was only a matter of time,” All true and then he turns on her, “And like you have room to talk with the ‘Stark Clean Energy Project.’” And if Cas gets one more houseplant as a thank you then she will pitch a fit. Her apartment is full and she’s taken to dropping them around Stark Tower at this point and then praying that it’s not a baby dryad. 

She changes lanes to get around the grandma in the Toyota, “That’s going to help everyone. Including the mortals because it’ll be more affordable, us because of my research, and your oceans because it’s green. And don’t change the subject, Annabeth won’t love you less if you transfer to a school in NYC. I know Estelle misses you when you’re gone.”

“You’ve met Estelle once.” That’s true. The little potato isn’t all that interesting yet, just really fragile looking, so Cas kept her distance.

“With a brother like you, she obviously misses you when you’re away.”

He gets a look like he’s remembering Vietnam, “I don’t miss the crying while I’m trying to sleep.”

Cas rolls her eyes, “It’s so unfair that you got a cabin all to yourself from the get-go. The rest of us had to adjust to sleeping in a room full of other kids.”

“Yeah, other kids, not babies.” Okay fair.

Cas happily skirts into the turn off from the Williamsburg Bridge and heads south towards the Naval Yard, “Ugh, why is Kent Ave a one way? I hate driving through residential areas.”

“It’s to ruin your day by forcing you to go the speed limits.”   


“Fight the power, Ariel.” She doesn’t actually do that. Cas would never speed in an area where a small child with no concept of ‘look both ways’ could run into the road but it does make travel stressful when she’s under time pressure.

“You should’ve taken the Manhattan Bridge.” Stupid co-pilot. 

“Jarvis said there was an accident. We didn’t need another delay Mr. ‘Where are my shoes?’” She finally pulls up close enough, “And don’t say the Brooklyn Bridge either because we both know that would’ve been a waste of time. We’re here anyway.” You would think that they would avoid the Williamsburg bridge given the history for them but….they’d have to avoid all of Manhattan if that were the case. Michael wouldn’t want that anyway and neither would the others.

“Finally.” He huffs under his breath as if she wouldn’t hear him. Ha-ha, very funny Jackson, “That Satyr-I forgot his name-” It’s hard because there are a lot of them and when talking to a startled Satyr on the phone….getting their name can be tricky when they’d rather babble about the monster. Not that Cas has anything against them, Satyrs are awesome and very brave to go out looking for hidden demigods so that they can be brought back to NY or guarded if the mortal parents are uncooperative.

“Rowan.”

“Yeah, he said something about the ferry.” He did indeed which is why Cas had to drive all the way around.

“I looked around the map before getting you. There’s a big greenhouse nearby.” Really big too, “It’s not actually a greenhouse, it’s like a party venue but this time of day there shouldn’t be anyone there.”

Percy draws Riptide and sets off at a jog next to her, “He’s a satyr and he’s scared. Where else is he going to run and hide a couple of kids?”

The answer is in a barricaded office on the second floor. Not that it was going to hold up to two godsdamned manticores trying to bust their way in but reinforcing a door frame with grass and vines via Satyr nature magic bought them enough time. 

So goals: Get the manticores focused on the big demigods. Take the manticores outside to the water. Escort the manticores to tartarus. Stall until the van arrives to sweep the kiddies away.

Those last two have a variable order.

~~~

There all caught up.

The kids have already been moved into a car to be safely driven to Camp Half-Blood but that still leaves Percy and Cas to fend for themselves against two manticores….speaking of.

Cas leaps backwards into a handspring as the second manticore gives up trying to catch said evac car. As if it stood a chance. It’s a very modified van, sorry kitty cat, never gonna happen. She’s able to pivot and get a slash in before it can swing its tail down on her but after that Cas is quick to warp away for some greater space.

_ “Miss, I have a call for you.” _ Jarvis needs to work on his timing and so does the manticore because she is having a blast dodging around it. At this rate, she just needs to wait for it to screw up because Percy is going to finish wrecking the other one no problem. No need for her to rush.

“I’m a little busy, J.” Oh there’s the opening. The manticore makes the mistake of leaping straight for her so she warps behind him and well, now he lacks a functioning tail. It flails around dragging the limp appendage and swearing up a storm or rather she assumes so because it’s switching between English, Greek, and Farsi(?)….She doesn’t speak Farsi so she’s not 100% certain but manticores are both Persian and Greek in origin making Farsi a distinct possibility. 

Jarvis has decided that ‘a little busy’ means ‘sure, she can talk’,  _ “Kid, you’re coming by the tower tonight, right?” _

Huh? She is? Since when? 

The instant of confusion is not enough to distract her from the threat in front of her and she rolls to the side as a paw the size of her head slams into where she was previously standing, “Uh? Why is something wrong?” There shouldn’t be because the arc reactor is perfect and so is the entire system for Stark Tower.

_ “It’s all set to go,”  _ Oh, that’s today?  _ “We’re taking her off the grid tonight.”  _ And creating a beacon of sustainable clean energy.

“Yeah, I’ll be-” Rather than back up to get out of range, Cas moves closer and buries her spear in the manticores underbelly. Not that it stops the thing because it back hands her (don’t ask how a lion body can back hand, the articulation of monster joints is not worth the effort to discuss) and she rolls away with a loud ‘oof.’ At least it wasn’t the claws….the stupid thing can’t even do her a solid and die from being stabbed in the stomach. These are tough opponents.

_ “Cas?” _ Ha...yeah.

“Bit busy. Give me a moment.” She’s already back on her feet because staying down against a pouncing animal is not a good idea. The good news is that it’s lacking barbs because she already took out the tail so hooray for her. “Look Monty,” It needs a name, “I don’t know what your problem is because we didn’t even kill your child napping brother. That was Dionysus.” There may have been words mixed into that angry roar which sounds more like a tiger than a lion but hey who’s keeping track? Cas does not hear any words though, other than the implied violence.

_ “Are you fighting?” _ Maybe.

“No.” And third opening, her manticore is very much slowing down since she’s stabbed it twice now but again who’s keeping track? 

_ “J, where’s the minigod currently?”  _ She sighs but gets ready to finish up anyway. The manticore leans low to pounce again for what it probably thinks will be last time but Cas isn’t waiting that long. In its fatigued state, its head has started to sag so Cas takes advantage of the exposed neck and shoulder. She buries her spear in it and the manticore goes slack before disintegrating back to tartarus.  _ “At least you’re in state.”  _ Oh no….don’t let him fly out here.

There. Finished. “I was fighting. Just a small skirmish, Percy’s here too.” She turns to watch as Percy sends yet another wave of water with the intent of flipping the sopping wet and tired manticore onto its back before sheathing riptide into its exposed chest. Awesome….it too goes the way of tartarus.

_ “Uh-huh.”  _ It’s a testament to their relationship that he hasn’t suited up yet. Or has he?

“Such doubt, Old Man. Have some faith in your badass child.” He should really get used to this. It doesn’t happen all the time but on occasion there are some monster’s that wander a little too close to what the demigods have staked out as their territory. She just happened to be the lucky one called this time but this was the first incident in weeks.

“Cas, is that your dad?” Percy says as he walks over. At least he doesn’t make cracks about her sanity anymore when he sees her talking to the air. “Tell him I said ‘hi.’”

“Percy says ‘hi.’” Because everyone says ‘hi’ to her dad all the time….

_ “Yeah, whatever, give my regards to the Little Mermaid.”  _ She chokes on her laugh but waves off Percy’s concerned look.

“He says ‘hi’ back.” There’s no need for her to give that one away. Percy’s heard it before but it would crush him to hear Iron Man call him that. “What time should I be there?”

She and Percy begin to meander back to the car, luckily there wasn’t any structural damage to the area but the next time someone comes by they’ll be confused by the cracks and dents in the pavement and walls. Also, the plants that are actually plants in the Duggal Greenhouse may raise some reasonable questions. Oh well, not her problem.

_ “You’ve got two hours before I throw out your food.”  _ It’s kind of sad that her family has started to use food to get her to go places. Even Rhodey promised her burgers to get her to go visit the base after she designed a better ejection and parachute system for the active fighter jets. Cas was inspired once she heard about her father’s first Iron Man voyage. They can be retrofitted into the existing seating rather than only applied to the new ones and significantly less likely to jam when compared to the previous model. Totally awesome day all around, it doubled as a belated birthday present because she got to go up in the second seat of an F-18 and gods was that a rush but she digresses. 

Gasp, he would never, “Your meaningless threats have no sway over me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

_ “Sure, Pepper wants you to call that doctor friend of yours to make sure she’s happy with the new contract.”  _ Helen’s contract came through? They offered her a grant for her research into tissue regeneration but she’s a hardsell that was initially taken by rumors of SI stealing ideas. Pepper managed to talk her around though but she’s been difficult to actually get on staff. Cas may have already been talking with her since the end days of being Dr. Campeao but she always wanted Helen to join SI.

“Don’t be jealous of my mortal friend.” It’s her first mortal friend and she’s very proud, “She shall be my science sister and we shall do a great many things.” Cas takes a swing at the snickering Percy beside her but he dodges.

_ “Expensive friend,”  _ Well, it was hard to get her working at the company but it’ll be worth it because Dr. Helen Cho is brilliant,  _ “And I don’t do jealous. You’re the one who complained about me being in Europe the other week for the London tower proposal.”  _ It was May the Fourth so she was justified but she’ll let that go.

“Good, I need you to know that this won’t impact father/daughter time.”

_ “Jarvis, hang-” _

“Wait!” She holds a moment to make sure he’s still on the line, “And we can always find a science friend for you.” The line disconnects and Cas just smiles as she pulls the car out.

“You and your dad are weird, Cas.” Probably, actually, yeah they are. There’s nothing probable about it.

“Maybe, but it works.”

~~~

“Hello!” Cas chimes happily as she steps out of the elevator, “I bring offerings.” Piper made use of Cas’s kitchen even though she has a perfectly functional oven in her apartment. She said something about Cas’s view being better but whatever. She has a delicious but ugly (Piper forgot to spray the nonstick stuff) attempt at muffins to share but eat mostly on her own anyway.

Pepper is closest so she gets greeted first, “Hey Cassie, did Dr. Cho get back to you?” Cas easily hugs Pepper and relishes it even though she just saw the woman the other day. It’s been an unsettling year for Cas but Pepper has been amazing and honestly she doesn’t know how she ever functioned without her.

“Yeah, she’s just doing a final read over but said we should expect it back signed by tomorrow,” Unnecessary, but Cas respects her thoroughness, “I’m really excited for her to get here.” Helen is going to be bouncing between Seoul and NYC but when she’s here they’re going to be revolutionizing biomedical technology.

“That’s perfect,” She leads Cas inside to the desk where there’s various foodstuffs surrounding a monitor, “We didn’t end up doing dinner.” Yeah, Cas can tell. There’s champagne and chocolate covered things….yeah, Cas is here for the tree lighting and then running because she doesn’t feel like third wheeling date night.

“Not a problem,” She makes herself at home eating trail mix that had to have been left out with her in mind, “Where’s dad?” Usually, she’d have gotten a snappy comment by now about ignoring him in his own home, which is impossible, but instead she got silence.

“Where do you think?” Pepper says accompanied by an eye roll. 

She’s moderately surprised, “He’s out there already?” 

Pepper doesn’t even have to answer because Jarvis speaks up instead,  _ “System is now relegated to emergency power.” _ And all but the most basic of lighting and the display on the desk turn off. Good thing she took the elevator in time but Jarvis never would have let the power dip so low that she got stuck, nah, he would have rerouted something so that she could get up to the penthouse level.

“Sad face, he didn’t even wait.” Cas doubts that the novelty of watching the armor fly off will ever end, especially now that the Mark VI incorporates some of her own designs. She programmed the flight stabilizers to act independently from one another.

“Did you expect him to?” Pepper sounds amused at the very thought of her father waiting patiently.

The idea in and of itself is almost unimaginable, “Nope.” She opens the suit’s live feed, “Hey, Diver Man.” She grins as Pepper cringes from Cas’s gods awful pun but she’s been waiting to use it since the suit was modified to go under water. Unsurprisingly, that upgrade started post-Santa Barbara.

_ “I hereby revoke your talking privileges for the next twenty minutes.”  _ From the display, she can get a visual on her father’s HUD which shows all systems nominal, awesome, and she can also watch the progress he’s making removing Stark Tower from the grid and sealing the circuit behind them.

“And I hereby disregard your executive order, but seriously, how are we looking?” There’s no warnings or alerts and she can’t see anything wrong through the feed.

_ “Perfectly, it’s me, after all.” _ She watches as he uses a laser to precision cut the cable open before attaching the clamp that will block the tower’s connection to the power grid. And that’s that. A virtual button appears on the screen in front of Cas and Pepper that says, ‘Press me.’ Very Lewis Carol. He’s quick to fly himself out of the water and Cas sends some grateful thoughts to Jarvis for washing NY river water from the suit as part of the routine maintenance. It would probably reek and she’s happy she doesn’t have to do it.  _ “All good on this end. The rest is up to you.” _

Heck yeah, “You disconnected the transmission lines? We’re off the grid?” Pepper is just as excited as she is.

Her father speaks confidently, _ “Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy.” _ Rarely does he sound anything other than sure of himself.

“Well, assuming the arc reactor takes over and actually works.” That was snide coming from Pepper.

“It’s going to work, Pepper, light it up.” Cas waves her towards their virtual big red button, “I’ll take the next one.” There are three more in the works just in the United States but Pepper totally deserves to flip the switch for the first building. The lights start to come on around them and Cas grins as the display switches to the power readouts from the arc reactor. The numbers look perfect, just like they designed it to be.

Pepper gives a slightly breathless, “How does it look?”

And her father returns a characteristically glib reply,  _ “Like Christmas, but with more…me.” _

Cas snorts at the ruined magical moment, “That one was totally practiced.”

_ “Alright, time for baby demigods to get out.” _ She’ll allow that because it’s him.  _ “It’s past your bedtime.” _ She has technically been away longer than is strictly advised, the manticores interrupted nap time.

But he’s the one that invited her...“Fine, but I’m taking all of your food. I missed dinner.” She was fighting evil cats. “And you don’t get to keep the muffins either.” She can’t even call this a waste of time because they have literally just made history.

“Take your time, Cassie. It’s fine. Right, Tony?” Ha, Cas loves when she isn’t on the receiving end of that tone.

_ “No, shoo.”  _ Her father is ignored in favor of Pepper’s plotting for the future.

She appears thoughtful as she slips on the CEO persona, “Gotta go wider on the public awareness campaign. You need to do some press.” Pepper turns away from the display towards Cas, “I'm in DC tomorrow to work on the zoning for the next three buildings. Can I put you on a morning show in a few days? PR still loves you.” Accurate, something about the idea of a brilliant and dutiful daughter makes people happy, who knew?

“Go for it, if you’re willing to risk me talking shop before anyone has finished their first coffee.” Because Cas does try but sometimes the science brain still comes out while talking and the interviewers are too nice to tell Cas to shut up and use normal language... like a demigod would. 

Pepper nods in agreement, “Right, afternoon then.”

_ “Hey, you guys are killing me. The moment, remember? Enjoy the moment.”  _ He’s the one that’s trying to kick her out after her calling her over here in the first place.

And then Pepper just has to say, “Get in here and I will,” in that tone of voice.   


“Gross,” She gags, “We had a deal. I’m out,” Cas makes a show of taking random food bowls and studiously ignores the sunken couch area with champagne and pillows.

“I’ve been dating your father for over a year now, Cassandra.” That she has.

Cas is still a fan, “And I’m happy for you both but if you’re going full happy couple in my presence I’m leaping from the tower.”

Somewhere around the time of Cas suggesting taking a dive to escape them being romantic, her father arrives, “Fall silently,” but even as he says it Cas accepts the side hug from him. 

Pepper smiles at the sight before continuing, “Levels are holding steady...I think.”

“Of course they are. I was directly involved,” Cas rolls her eyes and steps away to continue snagging the sundry snacks and finger foods that are to be her dinner tonight. “Which brings me to my next question: how does it feel to be a genius?” They don’t need the food anyway.

“Well, ha,” They are getting all soft with each other so Cas needs to get a move on, “I wouldn’t really know now would I.” 

“My Queen, you’re the smartest in the land.” Which is undoubtedly true.

“You’re still here?” Unfortunately, “I’ve kicked you out twice now.”

“You also promised me food. Were you pretending or is that the Alzheimer’s talking?”

He completely ignores her, “Kid’s got a point though, all this,” He gestures around the room a bit, “Came from you.”

“No, all this came from that.” And then Pepper taps her father on the chest right over the arc reactor. It’s actually a very important sign of trust. Cas knows what Obadiah Stane did and while she’s never touched the arc reactor herself, the fact that she’s allowed to see it says so much. And the fact that Pepper is allowed to casually touch it says even more.

And then her father decides to ruin the soft moment that had Cas tiptoeing for the elevator, “Give yourself some credit, please. Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself... twelve percent of the credit.” That had to have sounded better in his head but Cas has no idea how it could.

“Twelve percent?” Yeah, Pepper doesn’t seem to accept that and neither does Cas but she does not want to involve herself and makes sure to stay out of the way while Pepper moves across the room.

The speed that her father backpedals at is comical, “An argument could be made for fifteen.”

“Twelve percent of my baby?” But then she brings Cas into this, “Can you believe this?”

And Cas is quick to sideline herself again because she does not get involved in their little bicker matches, “I have spontaneously forgotten how to math for the next several minutes.” To which Pepper just gives her a look but hey, she’s neutral in these verbal tennis matches. Like Happy, who’s holding down the fort in the safety of LA which would be a great place to be at the moment.

Her father maintains his position though, “Well, I did do all the heavy lifting. Literally, I lifted the heavy things. And sorry, but the security snafu? That was on you.” Oh right, the smelly movers. She missed that incident and she does not regret it because she was in Indianapolis instead drawing up plans for additional demigod ‘safe houses’ at other key cities across the country. 

Pepper just groans about it and she’s justified because her father is not letting that one go. It was a few months ago so it really isn’t valid in argument anymore but that’s not going to stop him.

“My private elevator-” He is not helping his case here.

“You mean our elevator….” And Pepper is never one to go easy on her father. It’s probably why they work so well. 

But he makes it easy when he digs his own hole like this, “Was steaming with sweaty workmen. I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?”

“Hmmm,” And this is Cas’s queue to exit, pursued by bear, “Not gonna be that subtle.” Because they are on the verge of forgetting that she’s there and she doesn’t need to be here for that.

“I’ll tell you what,” Ah, here comes the over the top apology, “Next building’s going to say ‘Potts’ on the tower.”

By now Cas has pressed the call elevator button as Pepper raises the ante, “On the lease.” You know….they could do that or her father can accept that there is no human in existence that’s better for him and marry Pepper. Cas doesn’t have her hopes up because according to Happy and Rhodey, Pepper and her father have been dancing around each other for years. Odds are they’ll continue to do so until something Earth shattering happens which gives her father yet another paradigm shift. Truth be told, compared to Afghanistan and Cas, it’s unlikely anything that significant will occur. And so she must wait, tis the cross she bares.

Her father pretends to hesitate, “Ehh...call your mom. Can you bunk over?” Cas thinks that they may have forgotten about her with the way they’re getting comfortable with that nasty champagne and everything.

“Please wait for my elevator before starting date night.” She says standing by one the doors while balancing a stack of pilfered snacks. It’s not that excessive since it’s only a few containers which she can and will devour in her office a few floors down before heading home.

“Oh,” Her father pretends to look surprised, “You’re still here.” She just glares back because he knows this makes her feel awkward but he finds it funny.

_ “Sir, the telephone, I’m afraid my protocols are being overridden.” _ Who the fuck would dare to mess with Jarvis.

_ “Stark,”  _ Ah, the dulcet sociopathic tones of Agent Coulson, her father’s primary Shield contact,  _ “We need to talk.”  _ Cas has gotten used to his expectant nature like a person in California grows numb to earthquakes. If it reaches a certain level she’ll react but until then she mostly ignores it however...it’s kind of late for a consultation. And he messed with Jarvis.

She raises a brow at her father because now she’s moderately curious, “You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark, please leave a message.” At least she knows that her father agrees about random late consulting hours.

_ “This is urgent.” _ Uh-huh.

“Then leave it urgently.” And then the other elevator door opens and Agent Coulson steps on out. “Security breach.” Cas quickly-but not in any kind of way that suggests that she feels threatened-moves back into the room towards her family. 

“Mr. Stark,” Agent Coulson strides into the room holding a laptop of all things.

“Phil! Come in.” See, the words are greeting but the tone from Pepper clearly says ‘state your business.’ Pepper is also tolerant of the Shield presence in their lives because as her father once said, ‘it’s a necessary evil.’ They need to spy on the spies and the spies want tech from her father, equivalent exchange as an alchemist might say. Doesn’t mean she’s happy about the unauthorized drop in.

“Yeah, we’re just celebrating.” Cas says and hopes that he gets the memo to be quick and leave quicker. Until then, she drops her quarry on a table because Cas isn’t leaving until Coulson is very much not in the area.

“Phil?” Faker, her father pulled this info from Shield ages ago, “Uh, his first name is agent.” And yet it’s more fun to be the nuisance so maybe that’s why he does it.

“I can’t stay.” Obviously, they don’t want him to. Shield knows that they’re always on thin ice around her father. “We have something that we need you to look over.” And then he holds out that laptop for her father to take as if he would….these guys really don’t pay attention to details or they disregard them in an attempt to make themselves larger. 

“I don’t like to be handed things,” Her father doesn’t take things from people that he doesn’t trust but that’s okay because Cas will.

She swoops in and snags the device before Pepper can, “You’re not authorized to…” Yeah, whatever. It’s one of those new model lenovos which means she shouldn’t technically be using it but up in their tower in NYC demigod territory she should be fine for a little while. It’s not like the monsters don’t know Manhattan is full of demigods at this point but there’s too many demigods for it to be worth the effort to move back in.

“Cassie, what have I told you about taking things from strangers?” She rolls her eyes at her father’s misdirection from her admittedly too fast for a normal person reaction.

“That it’s only acceptable on Christmas and Halloween.” Which is actually solid life advice unless one is a demigod making fast bargains during a quest with the closest available spirit or god. 

“Good mini-Stark,” Cas chokes back a comment at that. Her father returns his focus to Coulson, “Consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday.” She just shakes her head even as she boots up the information on the device and oh gods….

“This isn’t a consultation.” No, no it is not. There’s a number of things on this device to come to terms with. Dr. Bruce Banner and Hulk catch her attention first.

“Dad.” She says in a sharper than normal tone because Captain Freaking America is alive and there are Asgardians….oh boy. There are Asgardians and based off of this Thor was last seen on Earth in December of 2010, around the same time that Annabeth’s family heirlooms turned on. 

Her father is by her side immediately and before Coulson can elaborate, “Is this about the Avengers?” Pepper says and it’s a good guess, “Which I-I know nothing about.” Right, because they’ve never had late night conversations about what would happen if a world level threat ever occurred again. If she’s being honest with herself, Cas kind of figured that she would be pulling Iron Man in as backup against some primordial ancient Greek/Roman being.

Evidently, it’s going to be Cas joining in on an Iron Man problem because she’s not leaving her father to face Asgardians, beings capable of near divine feats of power, and Shield simultaneously. 

Her father takes the laptop and authorizes a wider projection into the room so that they have more space to take in all of the data, “The Avengers initiative was scrapped,” It wasn’t a good name anyway seeing as it implied that the team needed to lose first, “And I didn’t even qualify.” Not exactly inspiring for a team of heroes. Argonauts 2.0 is a much better name.

“I didn’t know that either.” Pepper is usually much better at lying than that. More importantly, since when is Captain America alive?....Actually, nah, Cas is very far passed the whole ‘surprise, this person has a pulse’ trope. It’s very present in her life but not always when she wants it to be so okay, Captain America is alive. Done.

She’s much more interested in this Loki person because Annabeth has a right to know about this, which means everyone is going to know about this. Joy.

Her father half heartedly talks at Coulson but it’s more autopilot than meaningful jabs at this point, “Apparently I’m volatile,” Only when threatened, “Self-obsessed,” debatable, “Don’t play well with others.” Only if they’re stupid, boring, or a waste of time. She’ll give them inflated ego because of the statue a few floors below her but it’s not that bad since she got away with covering it in confetti. She had plans for the post-reactor activation celebration too but it looks like that’s going to be on hold for a while.

“That I did know.” Yeah, Pepper also has opinions about what was in Agent Romanoff’s report but there’s nothing for it.

“This isn’t about personality profiles anymore.” Was it ever, Coulson? And why is he still here? Cas and her father have work to do.

Her father huffs a quiet, “Whatever,” Before realizing that Pepper is still standing by the Shield agent, “Ms. Potts, got a minute?”

Because she has manners, Pepper hastily excuses herself and then comes over, “What is all this?” 

This is, “Something very new.” And while curious, she isn’t exactly happy that an object with that much power has been in Shield’s possession for years nor is she overjoyed that it was stolen by a spaceman.

“This looks serious,” Pepper says before glancing back towards Coulson, “Phil looks pretty shaken.” Huh? He doesn’t look any different than normal so Cas doesn’t know what Pepper is seeing.

“How did you notice?” Her father must feel the same way, “And why is he Phil?” It does take away from the creepy accountant scare factor. 

She turns her focus to the image of the Tesseract. This is it….this is the thing that Howard Stark studied and based the Arc Reactor designs off of. Shit. And now she wants to go for a chance to study it. Why did Shield have it? There’s notes from one Dr. Erik Selvig but he’s a theoretical astrophysicist not an engineer so why would he be there on a….what? Clean Energy Project? Cas shoots a subtle look at Coulson. Already, the things that Shield is giving them to work with aren’t adding up.

“I’m taking the jet to DC tonight.” What? Not a good idea.

“Tomorrow,” Her father catches Pepper by the arm.

“Even better, can I convince you to stay in my apartment?” In Lamark High-Rise, where she’s absolutely safe and surrounded by demigods.

“Not happening,” Dammit, her father still looks reluctant to let Pepper leave and truthfully so is Cas, “You have homework, a lot of homework.” This is a few hours tops….maybe. Cas doesn’t know much about astrophysics yet.

“Well, what if I didn’t?”

“If you didn’t?” Oh no, Cas can feel the smirk of Pepper’s face.

“Yeah.”

“You mean if you finished?” This could mean trauma for her sad ears so she inches away, “Well, um...then…” Thank the gods that Cas doesn’t have any kind of enhanced hearing because the Victorian scandalized gasp that her father makes tells Cas that she would have nightmares from that knowledge. 

“Square deal, fly safe.” They share an intimate goodbye kiss that again, Cas pretends she’s not aware of. Everything is fine. It’s existence doesn’t bother her, she just has no interest in seeing it.

Cas does accept a hug from Pepper before she leads Coulson out of the building, “I’m going to have to tell Annabeth about this.”

“You know,” He looks thoughtful, “I can’t believe I actually doubted that Asgard theory you dropped on me last year.” Yeah, he should know better by now. That’s something that they can talk about later though because her father has also zeroed in on the available data on the Tesseract.

This is going to be a very long night, “Jarvis, is there coffee?” They’re going to need it if they’re going to be crawling through theoretical physics and the available personnel data in front of them.


	2. Still Not Her Worst Flight

_ “Aren’t you glad that I bought you a jet?” _

She sighs, “It’s not mine. It’s an SI property that was purchased because you evil people love putting me in front of cameras.” Honestly, Cas has spent far too much time visiting other offices and doing press for SI in the last few months.

_ “And yet, you’re it’s most frequent flyer.” _

“Can you focus, please?” He’s enjoying this too much. Cas is stuck in the slow lane while he gets to blast off to the last known Shield helicarrier location but they still need a gameplan. Shield is claiming that Loki has declared war but not Asgard because Prince Thor is friends with a Dr. Jane Foster. Jane Foster is not available to talk to for….reasons(?) but her colleague, Dr. Erik Selvig, was mind controlled by Loki when he arrived and took the Tesseract. Therefore, they have no means to verify any of this information.

_ “Kid, relax.”  _ Oh, please give her a reason,  _ “You’re tech support for me to catch the space viking.” _ That doesn’t inspire peaceful thoughts.

“There’s too much unknown in that. Like the fact that Fury used the word ‘war’ but I don’t see any armies.” Except for the demigods that are already very concerned about the idea of angry Asgardians. It’s only been hours but Olympus has gone silent as well and it’s made everyone antsy including Cas because the last time this happened she had to babysit Apollo. She’s not looking for a repeat of that experience.

_ “That's why we’re taking out the guy in charge first.” _

See, that’s the problem, “Dad, you don’t send kings or generals in first. It’s the pawns.” Whatever Loki is, basic logic says he’s not the bossman here. He’s strong enough to be considered a god, so what force could command him? “And if the goal was to steal the Tesseract, then why didn’t they just open a portal back?” The available data suggests that the portal admitting Loki to the Shield testing facility was opened from the other side. There’s nothing to suggest that they couldn’t do it again.

_ “Don’t overthink it. We’re missing too many variables right now,”  _ No, shit,  _ “Once we establish access to Shield’s mainframe then we’ll be in business. First things first, we need Loki and the Tesseract secured.” _

Right, “Assuming that Shield lets us stick around to poke it with a stick afterwards.”

_ “They already lost it once,”  _ Very true,  _ “One-Eyed Nicky will have lost a lot of his standing for this mess.”  _ That will make it easier for them to throw their weight around, especially if her father is the one to knab Loki. 

Okay, so unified front against Shield when they push their way in because they definitely have a better chance at dealing with this than Fury and his spies do.

Because she has nothing better to do, Cas opens up the files on the other Avengers candidates. She’s already been through them more than once but it’s not like she has anything better to do. Dr. Banner’s research on subatomic particle variable collisions and personal protections from radiation were a fascinating read despite his focus on gamma radiation. He’s bound to have knowledge on other energy wavelengths though….nope, there’s no time for wishful thinking like that even if it would be fun to bring someone like Dr. Banner in on the Olympian research.

The Hulk, on the other hand, that footage is intimidating. If Cas was forced up against the Hulk then she would be running for her life. Based on the evidence, Dr. Banner isn’t at the wheel so to speak but he’s not exactly mindless as the big green tank killing machine either. It kind of makes Cas want to meet him…. “Can we keep Dr. Banner?” Not like a kidnapping so to speak but if the opportunity presents itself they should try to bring back Dr. Banner.

_ “Pretty sure he’s not a puppy.” _

“I’m just saying that he’s the sort of mind that would be great to have around. And the transformation is just a bonus.” Cas can think of several demigods off the top of her head that can and would want to have a go at the Hulk so that would need to be dealt with before he’s harassed. They wouldn’t mean any harm but heroes earn laurels and praise from the gods from doing mighty deeds. Fighting the Hulk would likely qualify.

_ “Cas, you can’t bring all of the interesting smart people into the company.” _

Pshhh, “Why not? It would make things more fun.” The R&D floors are already a dream come true and if she could she would live there but alas she is not allowed. Pepper read her some lines about sunshine requirements and being social. 

He ignores her that time. It’s reasonable given that R&D is already very interesting. She moves on from Dr. Banner and on to the spies. In a team envisioned to save the world from threats that ordinary people cannot handle, these two seem out of place. Cas wonders if there’s some kind of hidden angle to that one but she decides that it’s not strictly worth it to think about right now. Other than the personal vendetta that Agent Romanoff has since her favored partner was mind controlled into committing treason, that could be an issue later. She can’t say for certain though because she doesn’t actually know Agent Romanoff enough to predict how she’s handling this. The woman is a spy.

So now she’s back around to Captain America….

Is Cas surprised at the amount of messages she received regarding that? No, but there are quite a few Ares campers that want to see what he’s made of. How does primitive science stand up to a natural born demigod? Cas kind of wants to know too but she’s also aware that Clarisse would probably destroy the man so it’s best to delay that until long after this Tesseract business is put to bed. She really wants to see Captain America get pounded into the dirt by six and a half feet of daughter of Ares. Purely in a recreational manner, of course.

An alert pops up on her hologram desk and oh yay. It would appear that Shield has a positive ID on Loki in Stuttgart, Germany. She sends a new location up to the pilots and contacts Stuttgart Airport for landing permissions. It’s amazing how respected her father is out here because she can literally say ‘Iron Man business’ and they’ll accept it for now but expect elaboration later. She’s completely agreeable to that.

Her father changes his trajectory,  _ “Hero time.” _

Ha, very funny, “Don’t die and make sure Shield comes to pick me up. I don’t feel like languishing in an airport.” Her father can totally do this because the Mark VI is a vision of the future. It’ll hold up against a wannabe god.

Cas feels the jet change course and settles in to watch her father work from the display. If all goes well she'll be landing in Stuttgart roughly thirty five minutes after him. Which is perfect because it gives him time to convince Shield to swing by and pick her up. That thought makes her nervous though because Cas and her father are going to be surrounded by a whole lot of unknowns.

Not cool.

~~~

_ “What should my intro song be?” _ She’d like to believe that her father is joking but he isn’t. He doesn’t need to have a loud and proud introduction to the fight but he’s going to have one.

“How about Flight of Icarus?” Cas can make it a pain in that ass to pick one though.

_ “A little on the nose.” _

Oh please, “I’m sorry, I’ll try to think of something more subtle.” As she tries not to think on the hypocrisy of her father having that adjective attached to him.

_ “No wait, I’ve got it.”  _ Joy,  _ “AC/DC is calling me today.” _ Yep, that’s just so subtle.

He’s closing in on his location so Cas prepares to keep her mouth shut unless absolutely necessary, “Ithi eutukhēs.” She says quietly not that her father understands her wishing him luck in classical Greek but it makes her feel better.

When Iron Man wraps around the building and gives her a clear view of the plaza she’s unsurprised by the idling Quinjet. There’s a lot of people on the ground and no clear line of fire. The quickly sniped,  _ “Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?” _ from her father with Shoot to Thrill playing in the background does put a light smile on her face though.

It’s the fight going on below that holds Cas’s attention because nothing Captain America is dishing out appears to be having any sort of effect. Her father clearly agrees because he barely slows himself before slamming a front kick in the middle of Loki’s chest. It sends the very mythically dressed spaceman sprawling but he’s not broken. The weapons systems in the suit engage and target Loki before he has a chance to get up.  _ “Make your move reindeer games.” _ Huh, that helmet does look like an obnoxious set of horns.

“Are we thinking Prancer or Vixen for the name?” She’s expecting Loki to get up and fight but he stays down. He dispells his armor and puts his hands up. Damn, she was hoping that he would be one of those straight forward ‘will constantly try to murder you’ types of bad guys. Cas should have known better since the literature says Loki is a trickster god. He was never going to be straight forward.

_ “Good move.”  _ Ain’t that the truth of it. It’s not a real surrender because this is obviously a gambit of some kind. And here Cas is not knowing where all of the pieces are. Is this a clever pawn or a reckless advance?

There’s a terse greeting exchanged between her father and the Captain which she sincerely hopes doesn’t set the tone for this whole collaboration. Her father knows how to play nice with people that he doesn’t like because he does it all of the time like with the military both in the suit and out of it and she can’t leave out Shield.

“The jet’s landing soon.” She’s got all of the equipment that they decided to bring, a couple of subtle protections for herself if this comes to a fight, as well as her father’s unnecessary wardrobe changes. Despite being considered more or less an equal, Cas has maintained her position as occasional muscled lab assistant so she gets to carry the bags.

Whatever.

~~~

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to involve a civilian into this fight.” Is...are they talking about her? 

“I think you’ll find Cassandra is more than qualified to help with the missing Cube problem.” Accurate, “And I need someone useful around for the lab work.”

“It’s so nice to hear that you all think so highly of me.” Cas says as she walks up the ramp into the Quinjet. She should pretend to be amazed or something but half of this tech is her father’s from when he addressed the travesty that was a Shield transport before he got involved. They weren’t particularly impressive back then but these are pretty nice. Since the Captain isn’t interested in her assistance she addresses Romanoff first, “Ms. Rushman, it’s great to see you.” It’s not. She doesn’t trust this woman to hold a door for the elderly.

The spy is either in agreement with her or is entertained by the conversation and the fact that Cas has elected to ignore the Asgardian next to her. She hasn’t, not really, but Cas doesn’t need to be looking to be aware of the threat next to her even if he’s being cooperative. Admiral Ackbar is screaming ‘It’s a trap!’ in the back of her head right now but she’s not being given any other options than to spring said trap. That’s never her first choice. “It’s good to see you too, Dr. Campeao.” 

Cas wrinkles her nose in distaste, “Yeah, I prefer my now name since we’re not pretending anymore. So, Agent Romanoff it is.”

“Dr. Stark,” Cas blinks and then looks at Captain America full on for the first time, “This isn’t the time or place to play hero.” Right….

“Did-” She’s confused, “Did someone give the impression that we thought this was a joke? Like a ha-ha or something? I just want to find the Tesseract and be acting co-pilot for dad.” Cas continues in and swings the bag she’s carrying into storage carefully and with a little bit of acting. It’s heavier than it looks, not that Cas minds but she’s playing the role of genius daughter not the demigod. This is going to get annoying really fast because if Cas did her math right, and she always does, then she has more active combat hours than Captain America. Hers are against monsters not humans but her work experience may in fact be more relevant than anything Shield has available. Balancing advising without letting on that she’s more than capable of fighting these battles is going to be tricky.

Thank the gods that her father’s here otherwise this would never work.

“And what exactly are you?” Cas catches herself before she can react physically and pretends that it’s not her Loki is talking to. When she looks around with open curiosity and confusion on her face-which would never hold up in a court of Pepper Potts but should fool the ignorant-Cas very intentionally takes a step back towards her father. She even allows Captain America to step between her and the Asgardian.

She also, in a show of colossal restraint, lets her father speak for her, “This is a human young person. They’re great for freeloading and running up phone bills.”

“I pay my own bills.”

“With money from my company.” He does own most of the shares.

“It’s Pepper’s company.” But it’s the Queen’s castle.

“Up for debate-”

Then Loki has to open his mouth a second time, “You are not of Mitgard.” Malaka, Loki probably has some Space Magic TM or something that’s letting him sense her.

“Nope,” She leans around Captain America, “I’m from Long Island.” Cas did her homework and is aware that Mitgard is a Norse term for Earth….maybe it’s the intergalactic name for their planet too like how Germany is the English word but Deutschland is the German name. That would be interesting to talk about. It’s too bad that their interstellar guest is a murderer. Anyway, in this instance playing dumb is probably the way to go because she doesn’t like the feel of Black Widow’s eyes on her.

Loki turns speculative but doesn’t say anything further and Cas is more than a little bit grateful. The Quinjet takes off after that and Cas leans against the wall near her father and across from Captain Rogers….Or is it Mr. Rogers? Is he still considered active duty or is he retired? She knows there’s some rule about which people are allowed to introduce themselves by military rank in certain situations. Rather than be ignorant she’ll refer to him mentally as Captain America or Rogers because one is his name and one is a title that clearly belongs to him. He’s dressed for it, anyway.

It’s an unfairly tense flight because for whatever reason there’s already animosity between her father and Rogers. Cas does not know why. There’s also the glances being shot at her from the other occupants of the ship but that’s something she’s more or less used to at this point in time. She’s Cassandra Stark and people stare. Unfortunately, this evening she doesn’t have her sunglasses so she can’t stare back.

The Quinjet is pretty fast but they’re still in the air in tense silence for a long time. Now, one would think that Tony Stark is incapable of being quiet for any length of time and ordinarily that would be correct. However, her father knows a thing or two about presence and chatting idly like they would normally is not a strong look right now. Not when they’re transferring a prisoner that the books call Silvertongue and they’re joined by a living fossil that isn’t half as cool as a coelacanth or crocodile and a Shield agent. And it’s only been thirty minutes.

It should come as no surprise that the silence is broken eventually but Cas wouldn’t be insulted if people were surprised that it wasn’t her father that did it, “I don’t like it.” Cas looks up from her spot at the Captain though his focus is on Loki.

“What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?” Yeah, Cas has to agree with that Captain on this one.

But there’s no reason to go into details when she doesn’t know how good Asgardian ears are, “Iron Man is pretty intimidating,” Cas can taste the sarcasm as she says that, “Maybe we can convince Loki to run home.” It’s a small reminder to her father to play nice and remember they have an unwanted audience.

“That wasn’t easy, Loki packs a wallop. He doesn’t seem the type to be intimidated.” Cas nods to concede the point. The villains rarely are the reasonable type.

“Still, you’re pretty spry, for an older fellow.” Oh, Cas wants to comment. She wants to join the chat. “What’s your thing? Pilates?” The potential old people jokes cannot be quantified.

“What?” The Captain is confused but to Cas that’s as good as a ‘lets change the subject in front of our opponent’ from her father because it’s not wise to talk shop in front of the enemy. He just said it in typical Tony Stark fashion.

“It’s just callisthenics but for soccer moms usually.” Or so she’s been told. Cas has never been inside of a mortal gym before so that secondhand information may not be correct. 

“Best to ease him back into society, Cassie.” And now they are definitely poking fun and she’s not entirely certain why, “He probably missed some things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle.” 

She doesn’t manage to school her face into something neutral before that one registers and she feels a little bit bad for coming at him like this. But then again, he called her a civilian. Ah well, someone has to offer an olive branch, “That was an offer for pop culture lessons, Mon Capitaine.” Not from Cas directly, but she does know a couple of people from the early 20th century that may be willing to help a fellow time traveler out. (Hazel sort of counts as a time traveler even if she was dead.) “World’s done quite a bit of changing since your last nap.” 

“No, it wasn’t.” Cas just sighs at her father being himself.

“It was.” Personal feelings about this situation aside, the goal is protecting the world so Cas will play nice but she will not be making a habit of playing mediator for her father. That sounds exhausting.

There’s a beat before Rogers decides to change lanes, “Fury didn’t tell me he was calling you in.” To be fair, Cas doesn’t think that she’s in anybody’s briefings at this point but based off of the reporting that Romanoff was doing before she may be now. Either way, her father wasn’t strictly told who was coming in. He was just given some information so she’d been assuming that Rogers got the same packet.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of things Fury doesn’t tell you.” Which is why Cas will not be making a comment on said packet because it’s possible that Rogers did not receive the same one. He probably wouldn’t get the science jargon anyway, not that Cas knew all of it before yesterday seeing as astrophysics isn’t exactly her forte. Well, it wasn’t until she binged it over coffee and fruit snacks. There’s real fruit packed in the bag now so no one can accuse her of living off pure sugar later.

She’s willing to interject and attempt to bridge the gap that exists between her father and the Flag Man for no reason but her train of thought is interrupted by a surprise thunderstorm. Her father flies a metal suit of armor so she watches the weather reports for the region while he's out. There were no depressions or growing storms last she checked and yet the Quinjet is rocked by turbulence. That and the sudden feeling that there’s  _ something _ out there has Cas overcoming her aversion to being near Romanoff.

“Where did this storm come from?” 

It says something about Romanoff’s ability to set her feelings aside because she answers immediately, “I don’t know. There wasn’t anything on the scanners.” And that’s when Cas gets a little bit uneasy and inches closer to her father who can fly. Usually, when a demigod encounters a surprise storm it’s because Zeus did it or a very angry Jason/Thalia but she’s the only demigod here right now. If Zeus is about to blast her out of the sky she’d like to be in reach of Iron Man.

She shoots a glance at Loki who looks just as discomforted as she feels. Joy, “What’s the matter? Scared of a little lightning?” Ah, the ignorance of mortals who have no clue what’s really out there. One day the good Captain is going to have a lot of fun trying to wrap his head around the concept of demigods...assuming he’s alive when they come forward.

Loki only says, “I’m not overly fond of what follows.”

What? What follows? In fact she’s about to ask what that is when there’s a very bright flash of light outside the jet. Okay, Cas is officially very uneasy about all of this. Before she can ask the whole ship jolts almost not like turbulence but like something just hit them. Cas turns back to Romanoff, “Do we have any visual of the outside?”

“No, we’re only equipped with internal cameras.” Shit, okay she puts a pin in that because that’s an easily addressed later problem. Her father has put his helmet back on at this point but then he moves to open the ramp.

“Dad?” Because that is a questionable decision.

“We can’t risk whatever that is tearing the fuselage apart.” Okay that’s understandable but she still moves and prepares to defend herself if absolutely necessary. She hasn’t summoned her spear yet but she will if she has to. Cover or no cover, Cas has no intention of dying today.

Not that it makes much of a difference because a large blonde male in a matador red cape lands on the ramp and shoves her father flying back against the floor. Then he grabs Loki essentially by the scruff of his neck and flies away using a hammer(?)....Was that Thor? Is that another Asgardian? Thor has a hammer in the stories she’s been reviewing since Annabeth mentioned she may have space relatives. That was Thor….

“Now there’s that guy,” Her father says as he pulls himself off the floor.

Okay….In the Shield incident report, the security footage recorded Dr. Selvig saying that Loki is Thor’s brother. That doesn’t exactly bode well for him being on their side...assuming she’s right and this is Thor. Either way, she needs to move. Cas scrambles for her duffle bag and in the confusion no one present has a chance to notice how easily she moves it around until she can pull out her tablet linked to a Stark Satellite. That's right, the company has multiple satellites available to her because she needs to be able to sync with the suit and Jarvis. They were there before Iron Man and they have multiple purposes but this is just the most relevant right now.

“Another Asgardian?” Romanoff shouts from the pilot's chair and Cas shouts an agreement despite her focus being on pulling up the necessary programs in front of her while making sure that her earpiece connects to her father. Jarvis being the amazing and intuitive system that he is does that for her it makes it easier for her to hear what her father is saying over the roaring of the wind outside.

“Think the guy’s a friendly?” She would love to say yes but the present evidence suggests otherwise. He attacked them and took their prisoner whom they really need at the moment because some people are missing, some people have died, and oh yes, there’s a missing object of unknown origin with unquantifiable powers.

“Doesn’t matter,” At this point? No, it does not, “If he frees Loki or kills him the Tesseract’s lost.” She gives her father a quick thumbs up to show she’s got clear audio and then he turns to exit the jet.

“Stark!” Cas looks up at the sound of her name before realizing that it’s aimed at her father...oops but it does happen on occasion. “We need a plan of attack!” For what? Tackling Head and Shoulders for stealing their captive? Doesn’t need to be all that complicated.

“I have a plan.” Sure, he does. “Attack.” That about sums it up. Her father was just being dramatic.

Cas keeps one hand on one of the balance bars along the side of the ship, not that she’s concerned about falling per say. It’s just a long way down and she’s not certain she could safely get herself to the ground from this height. She probably can but these are not optimal testing conditions. Nah, she’ll enjoy talking to her father once he catches up to the Asgardians. Actually, in this she may have to accept the possibility that name dropping to the aliens may be necessary. The existence of Olympus could be enough to stave off a fight….but is that a call that Cas can make on her own?

Loki immediately noticed that there’s something different about her even if he couldn’t identify exactly what it was. Odds are that something is going to be said at the least optimal moment because she’s a demigod and her life is Murphy’s Law on steroids. So rather than leave it to chance she says quietly, “Dad, drop Olympus if you need to. If we can we should avoid a fight.”

_ “I’m not doing that, kid.” _

“It’s a backup plan not option one.” And then she looks up when Romanoff starts talking.

“I’d sit this one out, Cap.” And Cas sees Captain America strapping on a parachute. That cannot be a good idea and she quickly weighs the pros and cons of trying to stop him. That idea is immediately scrapped because he starts talking.

“I don’t see how I can.” Cas tilts her head curiously because she was unaware that he could fly but there have been stranger revelations.

“Captain America can fly?” She doesn’t see how else he could contribute to this particular battle.

“No Doctor, but I can’t stand aside while others are fighting.” Right, so he’s just going to slowly descend to the ground as the flying people circle him. Cool. So this is ‘the Man with a Plan.’ She’s worried. Cas is very worried.

“These guys come from legend. They’re basically gods.” Romanoff makes an honest effort to talk Rogers out of this foolhardy plan and Cas holds back the eye roll. They’re not gods. They’re powerful, sure, but they don’t have that bottomless well of power that feels like you’re surrounded by molasses at two times normal gravity. The Olympians don’t always feel like that but having stood before Zeus in his throne room Cas can say that’s a reasonably accurate description.

“There’s only one god ma’am.” What? “And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.” Oh gods. Cas isn’t even offended on behalf of her fellow demigods or the gods of Olympus. No, that’s just not okay there’s a lot of polytheistic religions around now.

Cas turns to Agent Romanoff after he jumps ship, “Has the good Captain been educated on modern culture, at all?” There’s Hinduism, sects of Buddhism, Shito, ...Yoruba religion along with its New World descendents to name a few. Cas can’t give a detailed account of all of them but they exist….he can’t run around calling himself Captain America and say things like that.

“Not my division but they’ve been giving him space to acclimate.” Right….

“It’s not working.” But Shield was all gung ho to arm him and throw the super soldier at the bad guys despite his clear ignorance. Also, #Trauma. As a formerly incredibly messed up child, Cas can attest to the importance of mental healthcare. Rogers probably really needs it given that any support system he had back in WWII is unlikely to be breathing anymore.

Whatever. Like Romanoff said, it’s not her division and it’s not like she’s qualified to help anyway. They’re also busy….

Her focus returns to the tablet in her hands where she can see everything her father is seeing and realizes just a moment too late what he’s going to do. “Dad, don’t-” He full on rugby tackles the large Asgardian that she believes is Thor, she doesn’t have confirmation on that yet. The goal was to reduce the conflict, not attack just because he could. It’s like dealing with the baby demigods…. “We’re trying to figure out whose side that one’s on. Not start a fight.”

_ “Less back seat driving and more helping.”  _ Ugh….Fine. He proceeds to crash ‘maybe Thor’ through a tree and throw him across a clearing.

Romanoff speaks up, “Is that a live feed?”

And Cas doesn’t even look up, “Yep” because her father has just pissed off a very powerful individual. Gods, why is this even her life? 

She can hear the Asgardian through the feed,  _ “Do not touch me again.”  _ Yeah, she has to convince her father to go the diplomacy route. Good news is that unless Thor has a twin, she can confirm it’s him from the Shield notes from New Mexico in December(and wasn’t Annabeth just fascinated to learn about that). She’s not going to assume because that could get confusing if she’s wrong.

_ “Then don’t touch me stuff.”  _ Iron Man is not helping here. This is very much not okay.

_ “You have no idea what you are dealing with.”  _ She doesn’t know if that's meant to be appeasing but it feels more dismissive and elitist.

“Romanoff, how far away are we?” Cas needs to get down there because they’ve left Loki unattended. Hopefully, Rogers secures their prisoner rather than charge into the fight like an excitable demigod.

Of course, her father responds to the previous statement like it’s an insult to his person. That means he throws an insult back,  _ “Uh, Shakespeare in the park? Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?”  _ In other circumstances that would be gold here Cas just rubs her forehead.

“We'll be touching down in another two minutes.” Joy, it looks like the storm made it a bit difficult for them to circle around. Cas makes another note on future upgrades on the Quinjet, external cameras and a way to increase stability in turbulent flight.

The conversation on the ground is going downhill fast,  _ “This is beyond you, Metal Man. Loki will face Asgardian justice.” _ Oh ding ding, we have a winner. 

“Dad, you have to do it. Play jurisdiction.” This one isn’t on the same side as Loki so they can make a deal.

_ “Cas…” _ She understands and is grateful for his hesitation even as Romanoff takes a very serious interest in Cas now.

“It’ll work. He’s talking about justice so we need to Stonewall him.” And pray that this doesn’t backfire on her tremendously. Cas never wanted the big reveal to occur in front of Shield first but there’s no way that they can get the location of the other demigods from looking her over. Lamark High-Rise is just another apartment building as far as mortals are concerned, even if none of them ever feel like going in for one reason or another. (Thank you, children of Hecate.) He’s still hesitating to say something so she adds, “Trust me, I have a really good feeling about this.” She does.

_ “You need to stop talking like a jedi,”  _ Never, Cas loves jedi. Her father speaks to their visitor again,  _ “Asgardian justice is going to have to talk it out with Olympian justice. That jet you attacked has an Olympian demigod on board, my daughter.” _

The Asgardian looks shocked at the revelation which is better than no reaction at all. He’s heard of Olympus, good,  _ “I was under the impression that the Olympians were faded into Erebus.”  _ Only some of them, like some titans, Pan, some giants.

_ “They’ve been keeping a low profile for the last several centuries and you and Loki just came stomping on their terf.”  _ This appears to be working, thank the gods. The best part is that the audio is all going to Cas’s ear so while Romanoff knows that something is off she doesn’t know exactly what. Asgard man knows about Olympus but thus far Shield does not. Yay.

“Ask him for help getting the Tesseract back.” Since this is going their way they may as well try to secure another heavy hitter.

_ “Seeing as Loki stole the Tesseract from us, you should take responsibility for that and help get it back.” _ Us is a broad term that Cas really doesn’t want to include herself in since Shield is there too but….blah de blah….fine. For now. 

_ “I’m afraid the situation is far more dire,” _ Of course it is, why would the problem be straight forward? That would be far too convenient,  _ “Loki intends to summon an army to the Earth.” _ Oh gods, there is an army. A space army….cool. Okay. Prioritize….Real life Halo….

Said army is not here yet and Thor said that Loki needs to summon it, likely using the Tesseract, which is in an unknown location. If they get the Tesseract before said summoning occurs then there’s no army and therefore no fighting. First things first, they need to secure Loki and since Agent Romanoff has just come around to where he’s patiently waiting….shit.

And now Cas has confirmation that Loki wants to be captured. Wonderful.

“He’s waiting for us.” Thank you, Agent Romanoff, for stating the obvious.

“Gee, it’s almost like he wants to come along.” Cas wants to work with demigods again, please and thank you. At least her father is listening to her but he’s aware that she knows what she’s doing. It almost makes Cas want to shout from the rooftops that she’s saved the world directly on two occasions and indirectly on one very recent occasion. 

Unfortunately, Captain America is not in sight of Loki meaning he ran off for her father and probably Thor.

Oh wait, there he is. Cas leaves the men to their man talk and instead tries to figure out how all of this is going to work. She should be able to work with the ‘friendly’ Asgardian but she doesn’t want everyone knowing what she is just yet.

She needn’t have worried. After Romanoff lowers the ramp Rogers comes on board first followed by Loki, then her father, and their new friend. Their new friend's eyes lock on her the moment he steps on board and he straight up grins at her, “You are the half-Olympian this one mentioned,” He drops a heavy hand on her father’s shoulder, “I’ve never met a child of Olympus before. We believed you all extinct.”

“Oh,” Loki appears pleasantly surprised, “Is that what she is? I had wondered.”

Malaka.


	3. These People Have Trust Issues

Cas like plans. She also has a fondness for schedules and routines. She finds them relaxing in the chaotic miasma of typical demigod life. Sure, she loses track of time sometimes (often; but she’s improving) but for the most part she gets where she’s supposed to be mostly when she’s supposed to be there.

Doesn’t mean that she can’t roll with the punches though. She’s spent a lot of time flying by the seat of her pants so this is nothing new. In fact, this is like a practice round because nothing is trying to kill her, “The preferred term we use is demigod.” And then in the sight of Asgardians and mortals, Cas summons her spear, twirls it, and then holds it lax at her side.

Her father has removed his helmet at this point, “Kid, this is not what I had in mind for your coming out party.” Eh, oh well.

“Wasn’t exactly my plan either,” She says to her father before turning back to the giant golden retriever, “We were trying to keep it quiet.” She’d go on but they have an audience.

Cas can see the exact moment that it registers and wow this guy is expressive for a near immortal. The gods are practically unreadable when they want to be, “It was not my intent to cause strife among your people,” How posh, but rather than actually apologize (not that she’s expecting one) he faces everyone on the jet, “I am Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard.” 

There’s a round of introductions and Romanoff uses it as an opportunity to report in while at the same time lifting off to continue their flight to the helicarrier. The same helicarrier that is very likely to be a hostile environment for her now….yay. It was her choice that led to this though so there’s no point in getting upset.

She goes after her father and says a simple Dr. Cassandra Stark with a wave at which point Thor nods and looks between her and her father. No doubt he’s trying to figure out who Cas’s Olympian parent is.

Whatever.

The rest of the flight back is awkward and nearly silent other than Thor explaining Loki’s motivations. Though the Asgardian in question rolls his eyes and in a way Cas wants to as well but for other reasons. This is another fight between incredibly powerful beings that are family which has put all of her people in danger.

Sounds familiar.

It sucks but the moment they touch down in the landing bay and the ramp descends Cas sticks to her father’s side. Is she getting looks because she’s casually walking through a landing bay while carrying a short spear? Yes, yes she is. Does she care? Nope. Despite the fact that she is very concerned about where this is going to lead her it is very relaxing to know that she doesn’t have to pretend to be a mortal. Life is so much easier without the masks. It’s also relaxing to have a spear strapped to her pants leg in the simple sheath that she brought along. She doesn’t use it often so she’s glad that she grabbed it.

They stand aside as the armed men come to escort Loki to a holding cell and they’re heavily outfitted. No one spares her so much as a glance but the rest of the jet's occupants are led elsewhere since her father needs out of the armor. No, they get Agent Coulson to lead them somewhere else because that’s not disconcerting. They’re taken to some kind of vault in the landing bay of unknown practical purpose (Tony Stark is just a consultant *wink* so Shield would never prepare a place for him to put his armor in the landing bay *wink*).

And she doesn’t even have to pretend that the duffle is heavy. Cas can just carry it next to her while they get to the place for her father to leave the armor. It comes off without machine assistance now but it’s still kind of tedious which is why she’s so excited for when the Mark VII is ready. That thing is a work of art.

“This is officially your worst idea.” Thanks, dad. 

It really isn’t though. She’s had way worse plans in the past. Her plan for Ladon was way worse than this seeing as Luke almost lost part of his face from her blunder. “Nah, I could do worse.” Cas will maintain that this was the best way to avoid conflict.

“Last I checked, Shield knowing about demigods was a problem.” Her father is still unhappy with her though. 

“They don’t know about demigods, they know about a demigod. Me. Just one.” The others are still safe, “I’m really more worried about this army that the visiting royalty mentioned.”

“Which would have been easier to deal with if I didn’t also have to watch Shield for hero-knappers.” 

Wow, “Come up with that one all by yourself?” They turn the corner and stop at a doorway when Coulson turns to look at them.

“Mr. Stark, this room has been made available for your use. Only you have access.” There’s no sign of deception but Agent Coulson is less expressive than a statue. They don’t have much choice here and Cas isn’t feeling threatened yet so she shoves the duffle bag into her father’s chest before pulling her phone and leaning against the wall.

“Bring the snack bag with you,” Then she dismisses him because Cas has many apologies to make.

**_Me:_ ** _ Okay update things happened _

_ It’s possible that Shield has been made aware of demigods. _

_ And that I am one. _

She sends that to a group chat and she should have expected the responses.

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ What did you do? _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ Cas wtf did you do? _

**_Princess:_ ** _ What happened? _

**_Katara:_ ** _ Where r u? U ok?? _

But why is it that only Percy asks if she’s okay?

**_Me:_ ** _ The choice was that or fight Thor Odinson of Asgard _

_ I think I made a good call _

_ Rather than threaten me over the phone you should know that Thor said Loki is invading with an army _

_ Blondie your extended family is mean _

“So,” She looks up and over at Agent Coulson, “Demigod…” She says nothing as she waits for her father to climb out of his armor. Is she meant to answer a question while on this flying boat that gives her the willies? She misses the Argo II, her trireme was brilliant...hers and Leo’s anyway. “That’s unexpected.”

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ What army? Where? _

**_Me:_ ** _ It’s in space _

_ I’ll get back to you  _

_ Sound the bugle and all that _

Might as well indulge the man. They’ll be working together until the latest immortal family grudge match is over with, “You were expecting something else?” Because according to Thor, Loki’s invading Earth because he’s mad at Thor.

**_Princess:_ ** _ I hate you rn _

**_Me:_ ** _ <3 _

“Something like a shapeshifter actually.” That’s surprising….she wasn’t aware that Shield knew about non-mortals. Do they know about the Mist distorting reality or have they actually come across true shapeshifting? That’s kind of rare in her circles. Frank can do it and so can the gods but that’s about it. “Are all of the old hero stories true?” That….that is genuine curiosity.

**_Katara:_ ** _ Why r u like this? _

**_Me:_ ** _ I fail to see how any of this is my fault _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ It’s not. You just invite it _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ It’s like you hold up a sign begging for problems _

Why is everyone ganging up on her?

**_Me:_ ** _ Just get the ball rolling please _

_ Battle stations for if War of the Worlds really happens _

Not that they can do much without knowing where the army is entering from. Well, she’s still at a point where this unknown army can be blocked out so life goals right there. Let’s try and prevent the fighting.

“Meh,” Her focus returns to Coulson’s question. Honestly, it’s mostly due to failure of humans to record history accurately, “To a point. History is written by the victor and then there’s cultural factors to take into consideration.” Poor Beowulf got butchered by the Christians back in the day so that epic has so many changes by comparison to the original. Cas has heard the original accounts of most Greek stories and they differ from their modern counterparts. Like Theseus….and Atalanta (another of Cas’s siblings actually). Atalanta was an Argonaut too even if the histories tried to erase her. Damn the Patriarchy. Fuck off, Apollonius of Rhodes.

“Hercules?” Why is it that every mortal jumps to him first?

“Unfortunately. He’s a dick so Disney got that wrong.”

The door opens after that and her father steps out while adjusting his tie, “What’d I miss?” He does toss a drawstring of food at her so that’s one good thing.

“A discussion on historical accuracy.” She stands fully and prepares to go wherever Coulson leads.

She smiles winningly at her very done looking father. Cas is proud to say that she is one of a select few people capable of putting that expression on her father’s face, “No philosophy before breakfast, Socrates.”

That wipes the smile off of her face because that’s just mean. Cas is not a wandering shoeless hobo that asks people random questions. “Mean.”

The two of them follow Coulson to the bridge where the rest of the...team (?) is waiting.

Cas can just hear Romanoff, “-eighty people in two days.” Yikes, is that the Loki body count?

“He’s adopted.” Thor says in response and she wonders what kind of an excuse that’s supposed to be. Maybe he expected a larger number of people given that Asgardian legends imply that they’re impressive warriors. Cas is hoping that it’s not to suggest that Loki being adopted absolves Thor and family of any responsibility for his actions. Because that’s not cool.

A new voice says, “It’s think it’s about the mechanics.” She recognizes Dr. Banner from some of the videos in the Shield packet, “Iridium, what did they need the iridium for?” Ah yes, the meteorite that was stolen in Stuttgart along with that rich guy's eyeball. The fact that that tech exists in a Shield facility somewhere sets off so many red flags for her because Loki did not spring that up out of nowhere.

“It’s a stabilizing agent,” Her father says as they round the corner. Then he says quietly just to her, “Try to be distracting without dropping any big secrets, please.” This from the man who said ‘I am Iron Man.’ The room they enter is definitely best described as a bridge. There’s a sunken level nearer to the windows where dozens of uniformed persons are typing away, an overview platform with several screens and banisters, as well as a large conference table. That’s where Rogers and Romanoff are seated but Dr. Banner is standing on the far side opposite Thor.

She rolls her eyes, “Of course,  _ father _ , I’d never do something like that.” She’s tempted to say something crazy and out there just because now but….she and her father are presenting themselves as a team. Any issues and disagreements will be taken care of later. 

They break off because Cas really wants to introduce herself to Dr. Banner before something irredeemable happens. Her father addresses the room as a whole, “Means the portal won’t collapse on itself like it did at Shield.”

“Which is important if the goal is to march an entire army through it.” She adds, “Then there’s the previous size constraint. With the Iridium he gets a larger portal for far longer.” Assuming this is an all or nothing assault like something in a fantasy novel actually no, even Tolkien had raids and small battles occurring in Rohan before Helm Deep. So where is that? The testing of their defenses, the spies, and the raiding parties are conspicuously absent from this so-called war. 

The Trojan war lasted years before Odysseus took the risk and slipped inside via giant horse to open the gates from the inside. If Loki’s ultimate goal is to open a portal and let an army take over the Earth then he’s putting a lot on the assumption that he has the superior forces...and that the mortals don’t just kill him. Despite Thor’s insistence during the flight back that this is a vendetta against him, Cas just isn’t buying it. If he is gunning for a throne then coming through alone and then surrendering himself was a stupid move.

Cas reaches Dr. Banner as her father reaches Thor, she’s kind of excited so she completely ignores whatever her father’s saying, “Hi Dr. Banner,” She holds out her hand and he shakes it hesitantly. Cas pretends not to notice the way he stares at her spear for a blip too long, “Your work on gamma radiation shielding is amazing. I referenced it in my own work on the effects of different radiations on mammalian metabolic processes.” That get’s her a small smile even if it dies as quickly as it appears.

“Dr. Stark, I’ve read a lot about you recently.” 

Yeah, “Good things, I hope.” Cas does have haters. It’s to be expected given her surprise leap from obscurity to wealth.

“Well, the most recent is the most surprising to say the least.” He makes an intentional glance at her spear this time and then looks around the room. Cas can literally feel the eyes of the Shield agents that are on her while the others are on her father. 

She winks, “Throwing wild curveballs is a family trait.” 

And now her father has reached his latest stage, “Uh, raise the mizzenmast.” That doesn’t even… “Jib the topsails.”...make a lick of sense. Percy would be appalled by the gross misuse of classic nautical terminology but it holds the attention of the sheep on the bridge. “That man is playing Galaga. Thought we wouldn’t notice but we did.” And then he goes on a full curiosity tangent that under normal circumstances would lead to brainstorming and fun. Her father briefly covers his left eye and says, “How does Fury even see these?”

A very stern looking lady standing at attention answers her father, “He turns.”

That seems like a design flaw. What if something important is happening? “Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the screens on one side? Or a sliding track maybe?” Cas says and when everyone is looking at her again her father starts messing with one of the displays. That lady sort of stares a Cas like she’s stated that gravity is a conspiracy which was in fact the goal.

“The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily,” The missing brainwashed assassin is bound to be resourceful enough to find whatever it is that Dr. Selvig needs to complete Loki’s plan, “The only major component he needs is a power source of high-energy density.” It’s at this point that her father plants a small device roughly the size of a button under the screen. Not that anyone notices with the way all eyes are focused on them and not what they’re doing. Ha, these people are spies. “Something to,” And then he snaps, “Kick-start the cube.” which activates Jarvis like how the Malibu workshop is set up.

The stern lady speaks again, “When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?”

“Last night,” With the help of a lot of caffeine and Advil, “The packet, Selvig’s notes, the extraction theory papers. Did anyone else do the reading?”

Cas looks around the room at the many confused faces, “I think we’re the only ones that were assigned the reading. You know, that’s not fair. Group projects should have equal participation.”

Before her father gets a chance to respond, Rogers interjects, “Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Which almost confuses her but it’s not his fault that he doesn’t know that in science power is power regardless of the source but she feels that ‘high-energy density’ is self explanatory. Whatever. Cas does not judge intelligence by one's ability to comprehend a physics lesson, particularly one layed out by her father.

Dr. Banner picks up the discussion though, “He’d have to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier.”

“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect.” Eh, Cas would prefer he doesn’t.

“Let’s hope he didn’t because if he has then he could use any old reactor to achieve heavy ion fusion.” Loki would have thousands of locations that he could open his portal at as opposed to a limited and potentially defensible number.

“I’m just gonna,” He father walks around the table, “Come over here and join my fellow English speakers.

She hears a sarcastic, “English? Is that what that was?” And hotdamn, the Captain can use sarcasm. Perhaps he’s salvageable after all. He was a little cagey on the ride back.

Her father holds out a hand for Dr. Banner who this time doesn’t hesitate to return it. Yay, he’s warming up to them. Operation Recruit Genius Scientist is a go. Oh, her father can get a science bro since Cas has claimed a science sis in Dr. Cho. This could work. “It’s good to meet you, Dr. Banner.” He nods in response, “Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled,” Which is true, “And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster.”

Cas does manage to hide this laugh behind a cough, “Maybe save that line for the second date, old man.”

In the face of that which can probably be described as too much Stark, Dr. Banner replies with a strong, “Thanks.” Cas appreciates that he can take a joke.

Of course, in walks the Pirate to ruin the levity, “Dr. Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him.”

“I would start with that stick of his,” Hmmm...the Captain has a point maybe but she hasn’t seen it yet, “It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon.” The footage from WWII on the Hydra weaponry is publicly available, well, some of it is, but given the age it’s not particularly clear so she’s going to have to take Rogers on his word here.

Fury seems to disagree though, “I don’t know about that, but it is powered by the Cube.” That-they can’t actually say that.

“We can’t prove that yet. Loki came through the portal with his spear at the ready.” It’s far easier to look Fury in the eye when she’s not hiding any more, “What we know suggests that it’s similar but we need more time before drawing conclusions.”

“Be that as it may,” Oh dear, he has a commander voice. Cas may have been spending too much time around her father because she has the strangest impulse to intentionally do the opposite of whatever Fury is about to say, “I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.” Okay, she won’t ignore that because that’s a reasonable demand.

“Monkey?” Oh right, Asgardian, “I don’t understand.” He probably doesn’t have access to the Wizard of Oz in space.

“I do!” And Cas now forgives the Captain for his ignorance because that’s precious, “I understood that reference.” He’s really happy that he understood something. Now she actually kind of wants to help him. Like a bit. Not a lot but she will offer access to resources later once this is all done. In fact, she even elbows her father for rolling his eyes.

He takes it like a champ and turns to Dr. Banner, “Shall we play, Doctor?” Yay, Team Genius is ready to go.

“First things first,” Fury has a voice like a scary principle in those high school movies, “We need to address the elephant in the room.”

It’s too late to play innocent but far too early to act like she did anything wrong, “There’s a distinct lack of pachyderms in this room but it’s a big helicarrier.”

She was perfectly content to poke and see if she’s in any direct danger at the moment even if she doesn’t feel anything concerning. However, her father does his overprotective of his own people thing, “This doesn’t seem particularly relevant at the moment, Nicky.” To be fair, she does this sort of thing too.

“This boat is full of people that are my responsibility,” Cas nearly grimaces because even if she doesn’t like Shield that’s valid, “I need to know what’s on it.”

But it’s still her, “If this is a customs thing then I’d like to declare one snack bag.” She even makes a show of shaking her drawstring before deciding enough’s enough. “What do you want to know?” It’s totally her choice because there’s no way that Cas the demigod is intimidated by Nick Fury the mortal. She can show respect to a potential adversary but this man sat back and watched while her father was dying so she won’t be backing down.

He crosses his arms, “Everything.”

Well, that’s just impractical. Cas looks at her father and mouths, ‘What?’ because they do not have time for this right now but he only shrugs in that ‘what can you do?’ way. 

Thankfully, there is a large and mostly friendly Asgardian present, “Are the people of Earth completely unaware of the existence of the Olympians?”

“They were, for the most part, up until we spoke on the Quinjet.” That’s not entirely true, “Well, they thought it was just stories.”

And now Thor gets very confused, “But it was the Children of Olympus who fought alongside my father against armies of Jotunheim over one thousand years ago.”

That’s a surprise, “I did not know about that one.” She will be having words with Chiron later about keeping historical events secret….again. The Romans were enough. “We were forced into hiding by a dangerous sociopolitical climate.” The vast majority of the room have no idea what that means but she really doesn’t want to get into the fact that her people were hunted down like animals in front of a group that hunts enhanced down and presses them into service.

Her father has no such concerns, “She means that the ignorant mortals got scared of the non-Christians with supernatural powers and started killing them.”

She sighs because, “I was really going for more tact than that.”

“We don’t have time to play diplomat with these guys, Cas.” Fine, but let it be known that she did try.

“Your people are enhanced,” For the first time in a while Agent Romanoff speaks, “And they lost.” 

“Murdering people for being afraid isn’t exactly something to aspire to.” Also, they’re not allowed to kill mortals without an airtight and strong defense but these mortals don’t need to know that, “Anyway, that’s the cliffnotes. Can we move along to the highest priority now? Earth still needs saving.” Cas has saved it too many times to let it be conquered now.

“The humans turned on the ones who were there to protect them?” That’s a very generous statement from Thor. Some demigods were just in it for the LOLs and some were in fact attacking and subjugating the populace. Not all of them are good, she can’t forget about Blackbeard or any of the numerous violent and cruel demigods.

“The human race has issues with the concept of ‘other.’” Is all she says to Thor in response.

“In that case, Lady Stark,” What? “You have my sincere apologies for endangering you and your people though from my experience I do believe that humans are more advanced than that.” 

Right, it’s best if she nips that in the bud now because her father will run with it, “Dr. Stark is fine. Or Cassandra, if you feel the need.”

“We are warriors preparing for battle,” She wouldn’t go that far, “It is only right that we address each other as equals.” Cool, that saves her the trouble of addressing him as Prince Thor for propriety's sake. Also, she gets the added protection of having befriended the other big gun in the room. It’s also possible that she has Dr. Banner on her side too since his file indicated that he was on the run when Shield brought him in.

Yay. She knew that this was a good idea. Sort of.

Just as the room is starting to relax, Fury just has to add, “Expect to be hearing from me later, Dr. Stark.” Wow. She’s quick to leave the room with her father and Dr. Banner after that.

“Gods, is he capable of being anything other than cryptic and threatening?”

“Relax kid,” Her father leads her from the room, “It’s all a part of the Pirate charm.” She doesn’t miss the way that Captain America watches them leave with an expression that suggests he’s sized them up and found them wanting. That sucks, hopefully she’s wrong about that.

~~~

  
They don’t even make it to their temporary workspace before they’re waylaid and according to Dr. Banner they’re only a few doors away from it too. “Lady Cassandra,” She pulls a face because gods, that’s not what she meant before, “If I might have a word.”

But if he’s going to retain the manners then she should too. Cas waves her father off with a short nod and a quick, “Go make friends. I believe in you.” Dr. Banner is both smart and accepting, she’s invested in trying to keep him now. She’ll catch up for the mad science in a few minutes, “Sure Thor, what did you need to talk about?” She’s already a bit distracted because she’s trying to come up with a way to track the Tesseract more quickly than praying they find a gamma signature. She’ll come back to that thought because Thoriel is talking. He has really nice hair.

“I needed to ask, while Asgard believed Olympus lost, you did not seem surprised by my existence, why?”

Well, okay then…

“First things first, Princeling,” Oof that gets a surprised reaction but if he wants to be friends then she’s going to act like it, “It’s just Cassandra. I get that with my father here calling me Stark could get confusing but if you really feel the need for propriety, Dr. Stark is fine.” 

Then she gets a smile that just screams to the world that this is a humanoid golden retriever, “Cassandra then and to you I am Thor.” Wonderful, casual allies is a good state to be in. 

Honestly though, there’s an easy way to answer this question. Cas pulls out her phone, “A friend of mine has this family heirloom,” And loads up a picture of one of Annabeth’s family artifacts, “Do you know what this is?” To her is a rune coated box thing but it likely had a purpose in the past.

Thor takes her phone from her and she can see the confusion set into his brow, “This is a piece of Asgardian technology,” She figured as much, “Where is this?”

She’d love to say but the ship is full of Shield and spies and unknowns, “Back in olden days of paganism looks like Asgardians left more than just tech behind.” It takes Thor a moment but he gets it.

“Aye,” He looks thoughtful, “You are familiar with descendents of my people. I was unaware that there were any surviving lines.” Seems there’s a lot that Asgard doesn’t know. That’s something to keep in mind. 

In response she casts a sweeping glance around the corridor and replies with a simple, “Yep, but they value their privacy too. Witch hunts and all that really put a damper on things way back when. Those angry monotheists went after all of us.” There’s no one around but there’s likely security and listening devices everywhere. It’s still a spy organization.

Thor nods slowly and looks sad, “It is not unexpected. Mitgard has come a long way but at one time they thought my people gods. Your Zeus wasn’t overly kind following the Yotun invasion and how my father involved Asgard. He barred our return only a few centuries after when the mortals began to worship us as well.” Ah, that explains a lot. Cas doesn’t know when this invasion happened exactly but the gods would not have been happy about outsiders bringing their wars to Olympian territory. Also, it makes her appreciate how powerful Olympus is compared to the other surviving pantheons like Egypt or something. Thor sure as hell didn’t mention Ra.

She does shift at the casual name drop from an outsider though, “Right, well if that’s all, Goldilocks, I’ll be getting on with the science now.” She’d prefer to find the cube before the space army arrives so as to prevent the wholesale battle that may or may not include her people. The alert already went out to Camp Half-Blood and Lamark High-Rise about the imminent threat but avoiding the battle altogether is the preferred outcome. “When all's said and done maybe I can introduce you to someone of Asgardian descent. I know she’d be excited.”

He nods but his mind is clearly elsewhere, “If I may ask,” Twenty bucks says it’s a mom question, “Who is your Olympian parent?” Well, at least he didn’t assume she had to have a mother. Kayla in the Apollo cabin has two dads because the Olympians are immortal energy constructs that do what they want.

“My mother,” It’s still so hard to say without gritting her teeth, “Is Lady Nike.” And judging by the widening of Thor’s eyes he understands exactly what that means about her and her father.

“It would appear that I misjudged Lord Stark,” Oh gods no….no, no, no, “I shall have to rectify that for I believed you to be a child of one of the Muses.” Harsh….the Muses are awesome but they’re more artsy than sciency. Which isn’t a bad thing, Orpheus was a son of Calliope and he was an inspiring hero until he made the mistake of looking back.

“Please,” She’ll beg if she has to, “For the love of Olympus and all of the gods, do not call my dad that. Stark is just fine, Tony even. But please don’t call him that.” It’ll never end. Statues and lordships and lunchboxes. She’ll never get away.

Thankfully, Thor chooses to ignore her desperation and nods before leaving the way he came. 

One crisis averted.


	4. This Is How We Make Friends

“Hello science elders,” As she walks in her father has already taken over equipment wise and Dr. Banner is reviewing Dr. Selvig’s energy reading on the….

Woah….that….that’s familiar and not in the nostalgia way. Cas is brought mentally back to that exhausting December night when they finished the arc reactor and even further back when her father offered her a job at SI. Her personal energy readouts are a candle next to a forest fire in comparison to the latest arc reactor but she’s wondering how similar qualitatively her readings are to that spear. 

“Kid?” Oops.

Huh…. “Any chance that you compared the energy readings off of that to the reactor in your chest? Since the arc reactor is based on the Cube then it may help.” She shares a significant look with her father that Dr. Banner doesn’t understand and that’s fine. It doesn’t feel exactly like being around that new element did but….if….huh. It’s like the arc reactor is blue and the spear is….some other color in the visible light spectrum. Same form of energy but slightly different wavelength and not unlike….wow she should have realized that sooner. It’s not unlike being on Olympus. It tracks. Powerful energy based object is similar to powerful energy based beings….Cool.

“I’ll check it out. Get over here and finish this up,” He’s quick to dump the tedious set up work on her but whatever. It needs doing, “What did the viking prince want?” This will also help shake off her uneasiness at the revelation her brain just had.

“Warrior honor and all that. I think he feels guilty for spilling the beans so to speak.” And wow. Dr. Banner is really smart so while he isn’t looking she motions for her father to make friends because he needs some. She gets back to work though because the sooner they find this Cube the sooner Cas can flee from MIB headquarters. 

The spear draws her eye again, not in the appreciative way because hers is better but, “Will we need to keep that in here?” Given what they know about it, Cas doesn’t want to be closer than strictly necessary.

“Don’t tell me the epic hero is afraid of the magic stick. What? Is it prettier than yours?” She lets that breeze by and chooses to view it as her father covering her awkward pause from when she came in and not him judging her. 

Rather than keep up the banter, Cas cuts to the chase, “Just concerned about the area of effect.” At that the scientists stop working, “You know, the flying monkey Shield personnel haven’t called asking for help so Loki doesn’t need to be near by or hold the spear to maintain control of them. We don’t know how it works so it could have like programming and subroutines.” And now all three geniuses stare at the spear with suspicion.

It’s Dr. Banner that supplies a solution better than ‘chuck it in a hole and run’ (sometimes demigod instincts compete with science brain), “Best I can think of is to set up a live monitor of its energy output and watch for variations from the baseline. The Cube had some major fluctuations in the readings before the portal opened.” If they were home then Cas would call in some magical back up.

She sighs, “I bet Hazel could contain this.”

“She’s the easily flustered one?” Her father hasn’t met Hazel but Cas has talked at length about the other demigods she knows and their abilities. Somehow, her father’s take away from the daughter of Pluto, who’s magically gifted and can summon cursed gemstones from the ground, was that she fans herself like a southern belle when embarrassed.

“She can also command the wealth of the Earth.” Because all that stuff belongs to Pluto.

Cas pretends that she doesn’t see Dr. Banner mouth ‘okay’ before he slowly turns back to his work.

A few hours of set up and one wardrobe change for her father later, Dr. Banner has finally finished calibrating a scanner to sweep the spear for gamma radiation. Thankfully, that’s not the kind of trace energy she and the other demigods throw off because that would be all kinds of awkward.

The snack bag is also open and Cas took her pack of dried apples while her father is carrying a bag of blueberries around. He can keep them, she prefers those in muffins and pancakes but back to the science.

“The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig’s notes on the Tesseract,” The Tesseract is a source of gamma waves, “But it’s going to take weeks to process.” The green doctor seems more interested in getting out than what he’s just implied. The spear is also an _equal_ _source_ of gamma rays therefore it definitely cannot be powered by the Cube. If it was being powered by the cube then any gamma rays from the spear would have a lower energy and consequently lower frequency. It powers itself….but instead of portals it hijacks a person's free will. Or fires some angry energy blasts.

Freaky.

She kind of wants to throw it in the Marianas Trench. At least Piper’s charmspeak wears off in less than a half an hour unless it’s continuously applied and she still has to do the work to convince the person. Piper would hit her for comparing charmspeak to this violation of free will.

Finding the Cube is more important than her current moral dilemma though and weeks is just too long. Her father agrees, “If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops.” While she was helping to cover for the not so subtle button planting by her father, he may or may not have ensured that Jarvis would control system processing as well as crack into the helicarrier’s mainframe. It’s Shield’s fault. The security sucks and Shield has already proven willing to hold back vital information from her father.

“Only six hundred?” She says through the screen, “Not getting slow in your old age, are you?” She’s actually quarantined fifty for her personal search.

“Back to work,” She’s already done, “Worst lab assistant ever.” Please, a lab assistant? Her?

That’s funny but before she can respond Dr. Banner says, “And all I brought was a toothbrush.” She doesn’t have a toothbrush but she isn’t planning on being here long enough to need one.

She pushes her father on when he moves to go circle around Dr. Banner but not before making him pass her the snack bag. There’s trail mix in there, “You know,” He smiles, “You should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land.”

“And there’s actual candy too.” She feels the need to add because it’s important. Her father agrees from the way he points at her. Then she sees her father pick up the probe and thinks ‘yep, this is happening,’ but there’s no feeling of terror or dread suggesting that something horrible is about to happen so she just shrugs when he catches her eye. If her father is going to invite Dr. Banner into the brand new science land then it’s best to make sure that he won’t go green when one of the lab benches goes up in flames. 

The R&D structure is far more fluid in NY than it is in LA so people move around a bit and these are the best scientists that her father could bring in….that says something about what kind of people they are. The first demigods will be able to join up as interns in a couple years too since her father’s decided he doesn’t care how much college they have if they’re talented.

Sometimes things explode or catch fire….or even freeze in the Stark Industries R&D department. That’s more rare though but may increase once she gets more of her people in there (Happy recently accepted demigods into the Security department marking the first major recruitment of her people). So if Dr. Banner can’t take some good natured ribbing from her father then he really shouldn’t come with them to Stark Tower. “Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem.” Assuming they can convince him.

Okay that’s fair but, “I broke a sizable portion of Manhattan once.” The gods fixed it afterwards but the damage they did over three days was impressive. “You’ll be in good company.” And that makes the doctor look at her like he isn’t sure if he should believe her or not. Cas likes him. Her dad had better make friends because he needs more than Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy; he’s a social creature….sometimes. It’s why he always talks as he works even if it’s only with the bots and Jarvis present.

While Dr. Banner is looking at her though, her father circles around with that probe and lies, “Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises.” And proceeds to jab the doctor in the side because nothing about being in Stark Industries R&D is stress free, unless he gets a private section but those take commitment.

Cas doesn’t even flinch when he gives a sharp “Ow!” and neither does her father. He actually leans in closer and looks just a tad disappointed that there’s no green tinting creeping out. Honestly, she is too but at the same time now they know Dr. Banner approved for catch and release into the science environment of SI. They just have to convince him to go.

The door hisses open and Roger storms in looking unhappy, “Hey!”

She doesn’t know what’s gotten into him so she may as well go along with it, “Hello.” And he looks at her like she’s crazy when he’s the time traveler who walked into a lab looking like the American flag threw up on him. Behind her she can hear her father complaining about the lack of green.

But, “You really have got a lid on it, haven’t you?” If he didn’t Cas probably wouldn’t be able to stand in the same room as him without wanting to run away. The ‘Big Guy’ in that footage she watched is not something that she could take on her own. “What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?”

“Are you nuts?” Rogers yells to the hyper intelligent beings in the room like they haven’t ever considered those exact words themselves. There’s a reason Chiron is still her first contact on speed dial.

“Jury’s out.” He says at the same time Cas says, “On occasion.”

Her father doesn’t care and neither does she but Rogers continues, “Is everything a joke to you?” Everything….does he have a large sample pool of not funny situations they’ve laughed at for him to pull from? They just met. Okay, she needs to not get annoyed because this man is experiencing culture shock and is reacting in the way any American from the 1940s would and that is without regard for cultural relativism. Also, they are a lot to deal with and there’s a reason Pepper has issues with them going out in public together. That Starbucks man totally deserved it though because he was a tool.

“Funny things are.” She sighs because that’s probably not helpful and her father doesn’t seem willing to give Steve Rogers the benefit of the doubt that she is.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doc.” Uh….rude. Preachy and rude, they didn’t do anything that Shield wasn’t prepared for. Dr. Banner was invited here and she would bet that Shield has contingencies outside of Loki’s current place of residence.

She’ll take this one, “If you have to say ‘no offense,’ then it’s probably offensive. There’s no threat anyway. Dr. Banner has it well in hand.” That doesn’t seem to reassure him and Cas is suddenly wondering if she should be worried about the Christian boy from ye olde Brooklyn not liking her because she’s a pagan. That would suck. There’s so many things that she wants to talk to him about once this is all over. 

Dr. Banner is quick to try and diffuse the tension though, “No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things.” That’s actually a reasonable thought. Does he handle physical stressors better than emotional ones? She files that away for later.

“If there wasn’t any risk then why’d you let me do it?” From any other person, that question would have made no sense but it’s her father.

She turns and looks Rogers in the eye and says, “It was funny.” Because it was.

Her father agrees and returns his attention to Dr. Banner, “You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut.” And that is unlikely to ever happen. He doesn’t seem the type of person who would enjoy red carpets and praise.

“And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark.” Oh, is that why he’s here?

“If you’re looking for a status update then the search is in progress. The system doesn’t go any faster.” If that’s all then hopefully he can leave now. Cas will try and talk to him later when she isn’t trying to override Shield’s security protocols with Jarvis. He’s focused on the current problem because he’s faster but Cas wants to know about Shield’s actual enhanced policy not the campfire version she’s heard before. She’s never going to get her hands on the servers like this again.

“Don’t forget the Cube isn’t the only problem, is it?” So her father is giving Rogers the benefit of the doubt. Let’s see if he can keep up, “Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables.” Fury has a habit of withholding relevant information. His pitch about Selvig working on clean energy for Shield from the briefing was weird too. Not to brag or anything but they would have been much better to call in than an astrophysicist for applying the Tesseract’s energy to a reactor of some kind. Dr. Selvig figured out some cool stuff-she did the homework-but it’s not exactly useful as it is. 

“You think Fury’s hiding something?” Oh gods, she laughs. 

She shouldn’t but, “Now that’s funny.” She says to the Captain, “He’s the head spy of a secret organization that exists to spy.” Hiding something? Of course he is but an alert on the screen she’s working from tells her that she’s found something. What’s the Index? Jarvis is still doing righteous battle with the Shield servers on his own front so she digs for information on her own.

Her father says something probably irritating to the rest of the room but she’s busy, “It’s bugging him too.” She does take note of when he tries to bring Dr. Banner back into the conversation and glances back over at the man who suddenly wants to make himself even smaller judging by his body language.

“Uh...I just want to finish my work and…” That’s not going to happen now. The doctor has a thought and she wants to hear it even as she flicks her new illicit information over to her father’s work station for perusal. The first thing they did was lock these machines down so there’s no little spiders listening to their conversations or monitoring their progress.

“Doctor?” Rogers asks.

“A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube.” Yeah, she watched the recording when her father ditched his tie. That was kind of heavy on the condescension. Not exactly unexpected since it was from a centuries old being to a human with a lifespan comparable to a mayfly. Typical god to mortal talk. It was the purposeful jab at Dr. Banner that made her uncomfortable though.

“I heard it.” The Captain prods for an explanation.

Dr. Banner gestures at her father, “Well, I think that was meant for you.” In response her father offers up her blueberries, “Even if Barton didn’t tell Loki about the Tower it was still all over the news.” So, Banner thinks that Loki wants them digging around in Shields secure files….what does he think they’ll find there about the Cube? It can’t be worse than this ‘Crossing off’ business that Shield has going for dangerous (read: uncooperative) enhanced individuals.

“The Stark Tower?” Is there currently another Tower in reference to her family, Captain? “The big ugly-” What? A pin drop could be heard during the pause where both of the present Starks stare at Captain America. Rude. “Building in NY.” Did they not have tact in 1945? He doesn’t have to like it but he doesn’t have to be like that. She can and will be nice and she reminds herself that this man was in 1945 like a month ago from his perspective. Culture shock….Cas can be patient if she chooses and really tries.

“It’s powered by an arc reactor, a self sustaining energy source.” Banner is in what she refers to in scientists as lecture mode and is looking to his audience for a sign that they’re following him.

“That’s right.” Cas says. She’s very proud of the new model of arc reactor that she’s been a part of making. They’re going to change the world.

“That building will run itself for, what, a year?” Hell of a lot more than that, Dr. Banner. Unless they come up with a better design to swap it out for.

“It’s just the prototype,” Her father says casually while popping blueberries, “I’m kind of the only name-” She coughs loudly because this reactor is part hers and her father backtracks, “We’re kind of the only name in clean energy energy right now, that’s what he’s getting at.” And it doesn’t make sense that Shield didn’t call them in since Howard Stark designed the first arc reactor and theorized a new element from studying the Tesseract. Cas can’t even begin to imagine what she could do with it now with all of the modern technology at her disposal.

“So, why didn’t Shield bring them in on the Tesseract project?” Excellent question Dr. Banner, and they’ll know soon, “What are they even doing in the energy business in the first place?” Oh thank the gods, Cas had been worried that it was her personal biases and general dislike of Shield that had her asking that question. If the good doctor agrees then she is diving right in on that one.

“I should probably look into that as soon as my decryption program finished breaking into all of Shield’s secure files.” It’s the casual way he says it. That has to be the reason for Rogers’s ‘offended on behalf of Shield’ response to that statement.

“I’m sorry did you say-” So the man does have manners in there.

“Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours I’ll know every dirty secret Shield has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?” Her father hasn’t seen the file she found yet since he’s been playing around with the very mature adults in the room so he’s still pretty calm about this whole thing.

“Yet you’re confused about why they didn’t want you around.”

Okay, that’s a very simplistic view point. Cas bets that this man hasn’t even had his Shield orientation class yet so she’ll indulge him, “Don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, Cap, but the spies outside aren’t exactly leaping for joy at the existence of a race of heroes.” And finally the man looks ready to talk to her, “Dad and I don’t know if they’re really allies or ‘enemies of my enemy’ so forgive us for being cautious.”

“Doctor Stark, we’re all on the same side right now,” This is a very naive patriot and she feels bad for him, “I think Loki’s trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war and if we don’t stay focused he’ll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them.” He’s just come out of a warzone himself so he just wants the familiar but still….

She tilts her head in confusion, “I’ve just established that I don’t trust Shield and I don’t really do the obeying thing like a good soldier.” Cas questions everyone’s motivations unless it’s an angry god. Then she's smart enough to keep her head down to avoid a smiting.

“Yeah, following’s not really my style either.” That’s one way to put it. Elias and his cult had to learn that the hard way….

“And you’re all about style, aren’t you?” With that tone of voice one would think that he was looking to pick a fight with her father….after having just told them to remain focused on Loki. Whatever. Cas doesn’t know much about what his life would have been like other than the propaganda from the times and she knows exactly how accurate that BS is.

“Out of the people in this room, which one is ‘A’ wearing a spangly outfit and ‘B’ not of use?” Ouch….that burn is delivered harshly by her father but honestly, why is Rogers here?

“Steve,” Dr. Banner wins the de-escalation award for not getting riled by these talks, “Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?” Yes, please Captain America. Is it blind loyalty or critical thinking?

He gives them a sharp look before barking out, “Just find the Cube,” And storming off.

“I think we made another friend.”

“What are you four?” 

She looks back over at her scandalized father, “Yes, I’ve deceived you this entire time. Don’t you feel dumb?”

And that earns her an eye roll, “That’s the guy my dad never shut up about?” Evidently….he needs a lot of help to catch up with the times, “I’m wondering if they shouldn’t have kept him on ice.”

Because that’s a good idea, “And put him on display like the Cro Magnon man? Seems a little harsh.”

Dr. Banner huffs a laugh though, “The guy’s not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us.”

Her father disagrees with that, “What he’s got is an Acme dynamite kit.” She did get some Wile E. Coyote vibes from Loki, “It’s going to blow up in his face and I’m going to be there when it does.”

“Let not and say we did,” Cas cuts in, “I’d really like to find the Tesseract before the inevitable Icarus fall occurs.” She’s so glad that she doesn’t have to filter that Greek out of her words anymore. It saves so much brain power.

“Either way, I’ll read all about it.” Dr. Banner says distractedly as he makes some adjustments on the screen. He really isn’t planning to bring the Hulk out at all. She’s aware it's not a voluntary transformation per say but still she hopes that he’ll help if they need him to.

“Uh-huh,” Her father seems to be thinking along the same lines she is, “Or you’ll be suiting up with the rest of us.”

That gets a larger reaction out of Dr. Banner, “You see, I don’t get a suit of armor.” No, he gets to be bulletproof for real, and missile proof, and tank proof. Seems useful, “I’m exposed. Like a nerve. It’s a nightmare.” That sounds like a lack of control problem but she doesn’t know him well enough to give training tips.

“You know, I’ve got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart,” Cas shifts a little because she doesn’t enjoy thinking about that, “This stops it.” Her father lightly taps the arc reactor as he makes his way over to Dr. Banner. “This little circle of light, it’s a part of me now, not just armor. It’s a terrible privilege.” Then he pauses and looks at Cas.

She’s confused, “What?” He gestures at the other man, “Am I supposed to say something? I thought this was manpain time.” And then he gives her The Look TM , it’s a recent development and there’s probably a dad joke waiting in the wings about it but Cas hasn’t thought it up yet, “Okay then, my turn.” She looks at Dr. Banner, “Whenever I step outside there’s a chance that there’s some monster from myth or nightmares that’s going to decide I’d make a good meal or a fun thing to murder. Could be anywhere at any time.” It’s a pretty good reason to live in a hole and never come out, “I learned to use my abilities to protect myself and others like me so that I can go out and actually live.”

“But you can control it.” Fair, that's very fair.

“It’s a learning process.” She adds.

“It’s different.” Cas has decided that Dr. Banner is a brooder. It’s going to take quite a while before he can be knocked out of that melancholy….they definitely need to keep him now.

“Hey, I read all about your accident,” Her father reclaims the conversation. Though they all heard about Dr. Banner’s accident at this point. It must be rough to have his entire story right there for everyone to read through without his permission. No one has the details on Afghanistan and she doubts that anyone ever will. No one here has the details on her either and none of them ever will, “That much gamma exposure should’ve killed you.”

“It’s true,” She casually tosses out from the bench she’s retreated to with her almost empty trail mix. That's unfortunate. What else did she bring? “You being here is something like an actual miracle.”

That seems to amuse Dr. Banner, “So you’re saying that the Hulk,” He catches himself and starts again, “The Other Guy saved my life?” Maybe, or the Fates have something in store for him, who knows? “That’s nice. It’s a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?”

“We’ll just have to stick around and figure that out,” She tosses an almond into her mouth.

“You may not enjoy that,” The Doctor finally says but Cas just shrugs because she’s seen much worse than anything that a mortal can come up with.

“And you just might.” Her father finally returns to the work station where she dropped the files on the Index. And three, two…. “Kid, what the hell is this?” It’s amazing how quickly her father’s mood can turn.

“The Shield Index,” She sticks to nonchalant because it’s about what she was expecting to find. The number in the crossed off category is larger than she was expecting but she’s already downloaded it and sent it off to Chiron. It goes back a couple of decades and she wants to give him the chance to read it. There might be some lost demigods on there that need to be laid to rest properly. “How’s J doing on the Cube stuff?”

“No, little miss mini-god,” He hasn’t called her that in a while, “This is an urgent problem not a ‘when I happen to get to it’ problem.” It’s at this point that Dr. Banner gets curious about her father’s sudden mood swing and goes to check it out himself.

“This….this is active now?” Uh-oh, Cas appears to have made their newest friend very uncomfortable with this discovery.

Maybe some levity, “Hey Old Man, who do you think they’ll send to do my psych eval and threat assessment?” If they actually try then Cas will do her best to run them up a wall. It’ll be fun. The basis of the program seems to be find and recruit or heavily encourage to keep quiet. Problem is that most of the enhanced they find are all accused of misdemeanors or petty crimes of desperation. The good ones already live quiet lives so to speak.

If the accused say no to the Shield job fair, well...Cas has never seen any news stories about enhanced criminals but according to this list they exist. Or they used to...because they’re 'Crossed Off.'

“They won’t be sending anyone.” It would appear that humor and sarcasm were not the way to go this time around with her father, “I’m shifting the processing power you were using back onto Shield’s research on the Tesseract. We need to know what they’re doing with it.” It’s possible that the Stark working relationship with Shield is at its end.

But yeah, that's probably important. Now that they’re all aware of Shield's actual list of all ‘known’ enhanced, their abilities, and psych profiles it seems a bit more imperative that they find out why Shield was working on the Tesseract in silence. These enhanced individuals are all assigned a handler and Cas would bet good money that Agent Coulson is her father’s Shield issued handler. This probably ties into the whole belief of protecting the world by keeping the majority of the population ignorant and compliant. Her father had fun ruining that and one day so will Cas. However, there is only one part of this that genuinely disturbed Cassandra and that is the concept of being ‘Crossed off.’ These are individuals who were deemed too dangerous by Shield and were dealt with. No trials, no justice. Just gone.

From what she saw, a few cases of ‘too dangerous’ really equated to ‘unwilling to serve’ and by the gods, that is some messed up methodology. It makes her wonder what else Shield is willing to justify under the flag of we’re the good guys and we’re protecting the people.

It only takes a few more minutes for that Access Denied label to switch it’s tune and, “Di immortales, what do they need these for?” Then the scientists gain access to Phase II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first starting writing this my friend specifically told me that it was imperative that Dr. Banner is spontaneously adopted into the group. It's important. I like Banner and he got a raw deal in AoU...not that I've decided how to approach that one yet.


	5. It's All a Matter of Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE ARGUMENT SCENE!!!
> 
> I love the argument scene in the movie. It's so important because it sets up so much later in the MCU and drags out some many character flaws that I don't feel are properly utilized outside of fanfic. I'm going to do my best to poke at them.
> 
> Also, mild disclaimer on this chapter. I play with the sequence of events and pacing for the sake of the story. So yes, I'm aware that the turbine scene doesn't quite happen the way I write it in the movie but this worked for me because I'm writing it and not shooting a film.
> 
> As always, thank you lovely readers for taking the time to look at my ramblings.

Cas starts a bit from her focus on the blueprints for the ICBMs powered by the Tesseract(...wtf) when the door hisses open and Fury sweeps in. Gods, this kind of destruction would be on the level of Zeus destroying Tyana and beyond something more modern that Howard Stark had a hand in…. What could Shield need this kind of ordinance for?

Well, they’re about to find out, “What are you doing, Mr. Stark?” Wow. That is not a strong defense. Mr. Pirate had better not think that he can come in here and make accusations at them. Not now.

“Uh,” Her father turns his head but doesn’t move from the display they’re currently pouring over, “Kind of been wondering the same thing about you.” Among other things, like how many demigods has he been complicit in the deaths of over the years.

“You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract.” As if this man has an honest leg to stand on.

Dr. Banner officially chooses to side with them too, “We are.” He motions to one of the other displays while she and her father smile, “The model’s locked and we’re sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit we’ll have the location within half a mile.”

“Although, at this point,” Cas weighs in too, “I don’t think giving it back to you is the best idea.” Between Loki or Shield….Cas would rather study it and then give it to Mt. Olympus.

“Yeah,” Her father crosses his arms as Jarvis broadcasts his control over the systems, “What is Phase II?”

A clanging behind Fury draws their attention and there stands Captain America with a very Star Trek looking weapon unceremoniously dumped on a table. She didn’t even notice him come in, “Phase II is Shield uses the Cube to make weapons.” Yeah, they got that but more evidence is always good. Also, the Captain is on their side too so yay. “Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me.” Not a problem. They got the same results.

“Rogers,” Fury turns to appease the Captain, “We gathered everything related to the Tesseract.” Okay, sure. “This does not mean we’re making-” Solid defense but….

“I’m sorry, Nick,” Her father could have been described as gleeful if she didn’t know that he’s out for blood right now, “What were you lying?” He twists the display around so the whole room can see the missile specs.

“I was wrong, Director,” Why does he look so disappointed? They did warn him, “The world hasn’t changed a bit.” It’s not that surprising. Humans have spent centuries finding more and more ways to kill each other.

For some reason, the lab has become something of a meeting place. She says this because Thor and Romanoff come in next. She makes eye contact with Thor but he glances with concern at Dr. Banner. Why?

“Did you know about this?” Dr. Banners demands from behind her and from the way Romanoff stiffens she assumes that he’s talking to her. They seem to know each other so she must be the agent that dragged him here.

“You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” Well now, that’s a bit of a non-answer from Romanoff and Cas doesn’t particularly like it. The room feels divided in...well it looks like Jocks and Nerds to be honest. And Cas doesn’t like her odds as the only fighter on the Nerds half but she’s still going to try….(but she still has the Captain as back up, right?)

“And go with you?” Cas shifts over to break her line of sight. Dr. Banner has her respect now so she isn’t going to let Shield slip in and order him around, even if Thor sides with them. She’ll admit it, she kind of likes him, and with everything that’s happening, “That doesn’t sound very smart given recent revelations.” 

Romanoff moves to go around her but Cas intercepts, “Loki is manipulating him. It could put everyone here at risk.”

Wow, “Lady, Loki is attempting to manipulate everyone on this ship.” If that wasn’t already obvious, “I’m not about to act on your fears.”

She hears Dr. Banner move up next to her, “I was pretty well removed from all of this before you brought me in and I’m not about to leave now because you got a little twitchy.” He takes his turn in front of the display, “I’d like to know why Shield is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.”

Fury seems to be the type to point fingers instead of taking responsibility, “Because of him.” He says while pointing at Thor.

_ ….threat… _

The Asgardian in question looks confused at being put on the spot, “Me?” and yeah, she’s confused too.

Thankfully, Fury is kind enough to elaborate, “Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town.” Ah, right the worst of human emotions. Fear is a dangerous thing that when allowed to fester gets used to justify even worse things, “We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.” He circles the room as if this little speech is supposed to win him some sympathy.

…. _ threat….dangerdanger _

Where? She sweeps the room with her eyes but nothing is jumping out at her and everything looks as normal as a lab on a flying aircraft carrier can look despite the dividing halves in the room.

“So you were terrified,” Well, Cas won’t let him gain support, “You were so scared of the ‘other’ that you needed a way to kill it so that you could feel safe.” Ha, that’s pathetic. All her life, there’s always been that awareness that there are things that can squash her like a bug. She accepted that and they should too. “I hate to break it to you but there are a lot of things out there that are a lot bigger than you.”

“Are you suggesting that we roll over and allow this invasion?” Oh gods, again this hardly qualifies as an invasion. They only have one confirmed enemy at the moment.

Thor does try to de-escalate, “My people want nothing but peace with your planet.”

“But you’re not the only people out there, are you?” He has the audacity to point at her now and she just crosses her arms, “The demigod proves you’re not the only threat.”

_...threatdangerthreatdangerdanger _

“Excuse me?” How dare this man. Who does he think he is? Cas is a daughter of Nike, she shouldn’t have to deal with this, “My people have been around for thousands of years and we’ve never done anything that could warrant that.” She points at the Phase II missile, “We’re part of the populace.”

“Exactly,” What? “The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched, that can’t be controlled.”

_ DANGER!THREAT! _

Something is very wrong with this man because that is insane. That’s not right. He doesn’t have the right to control people or even command them if the response to threats is to build a bigger stick. That doesn’t protect anyone; it just creates collateral.

“Like you controlled the Cube?” And in swings Rogers with a very valid point. That puts him on their side. If Shield can’t be trusted with the Cube then they shouldn’t be trusted with people’s lives.

Thor decides to build on that, “Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it,” Though, she’s still unsure about that point, “And his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war.” That’s a terrifying notion and a bell can’t be unrung. Humanity introduced itself to the universe by making things that go boom.

Somehow this concept confuses Rogers, “A higher form?” Though that one he should get seeing as he existed during the transition from trench warfare to tanks.

“You forced our hand,” He didn’t force shit. She moves to shut him up but her father drops a hand on her shoulder, “We had to come up with something.”

_ DANGER!THREAT!DANGER!THREAT! _

“A nuclear deterrent,” Her father has entered the fray, “Because that always calms everything right down.” He would know. Her father would know better than most given that he was in the business and he got himself and his company out.

Of course, Fury decides to try and rub the past in her father's face as if that would work, “Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark.” Cas has heard a thousand and one lines from a thousand and one people who hate her father. This is nothing.

“I’m sure if he still made weapons,” Hold up, Rogers was just on their side, “Stark would be neck deep-”

And Cas will not stand for that at all, “Do not compare my father to these people, Rogers. You won’t like what comes next.” She comes to stand right next to her father and her hand falls to her spear but he doesn’t appear to back down. That’s fine she can take this supersoldier, Cas hasn’t lost a real fight yet.

_ DANGER!DANGER!DANGER! _

That’s fine too. If Rogers wants to go then Cas is all for it. Even if the Science Project is somehow stronger than her she knows that she can win.

On the other side of the lab Thor approaches Fury, “I thought humans were more evolved than this.” He was far too optimistic when he spoke to her earlier. Mortals are exactly what Cas has always believed them to be. Violent and afraid of change.

“Excuse me,” Fury rounds on Thor, “Did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?” No, humans have just been doing that to other humans for the last several centuries mostly to other ‘less advanced’ societies. Humans aren’t better and Cas will admit to that.

“You treat your champions with such mistrust.”

It’s becoming hard to follow the sudden yelling and gods does her head hurt. Lack of sleep? It doesn’t help that her feelings are going wild right now with all of the threats in the room. Wait….what threats?

“Are you all really that naive?” Romanoff decides to defend Fury, “Shield monitors potential threats.” Right, that threat.

“What is this Minority Report?” She scoffs, “I wonder what’s going to happen when you come up as Tom Cruise. You gonna roll over and die like a good comrade?” Potential threats? Yeah right, more like anything that thinks or acts outside of their definition of normal.

“Is Captain America on this threat watch?” Dr. Banner says and you know what? Cas wouldn’t be surprised because these spies are paranoid. It’s in the job description.

And Romanoff doesn’t disappoint, “We all are.”

“How flattering.” She bites out, “It’s such illustrious company.” Her brain is still firing on all cylinders to tell her that something is  _ wrong. _ And she agrees. Cas wants off of this boat and away from all of these malakes.

“Wait, you’re on that list?” Her father starts antagonizing Captain America and she wants to shout at him to shut up...what? That’s not….She doesn’t…. “Are you above or below angry bees?”

Ha. “Below, bees are threatening.” 

_ DANGER! _

Where? Where is this danger? She can’t see any one thing that’s a threat right now just a whole lot of bullshit.

“Stark, so help me God, if you make one more wisecrack….”

Oh, that’s an invitation.

“Threat!” Her father steps back with his hands up, “Verbal threat. I feel threatened.” And Cas slides into the empty space with a smile.

“You’ll what, Captain? Enlighten me.” She’s so ready for him to throw a punch because Cas will put him through the reinforced window.

And then Rogers just has to say, “Show some respect.”

She steps closer, “You haven’t exactly been showing any yourself, lab rat.” Please, let him throw that punch because she is just looking for an excuse at this point. All of this is wrong and these people surrounding them aren’t the good guys. They aren’t even a necessary evil like her father thought.

_ Threat!THreAt!THREAT!  _ And her senses are going nuts everywhere making her head want to explode.

The arguing descends into childish playground nonsense.

“You speak of control, yet you court chaos.” And Thor has summed up exactly what Shield has been doing. Leave it to the near immortal alien to be able to articulate the truth so succinctly.

_ DANGER! _

“That’s his M.O. isn’t it?” And then everyone turns to Dr. Banner, “I mean, what are we, a team?” She nearly scoffs again, “No, no, we’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re,” And then he has a eureka moment, “We’re a time bomb.” He’s right. There’s nothing happening in this room that remotely suggests that these individuals are capable of setting their differences aside and working together.

She’d be better off working with the demigods right now.

“You need to step away.” Eh, this conflict all started when Fury gathered them together. Maybe he should leave.

“Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?” Gods, she loves her father but he needs to shut up. This is not the time. No….what? Cas doesn’t….Something’s….off...more than this room but her head hurts.

“You know damn well why. Back off!” Rogers snaps back.

Well screw him, she doesn’t need to stand for her father though, “Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.” She’ll happily back him up instead.

“Yeah, big man in a suit of armor.” Rogers actually circles them like some kind of shark, “Take that off, what are you?” She could, she totally could but….

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,” And dumbass because Pepper will hear about that third attribute. Why did he open his mouth? Whatever, her father is an ass but she’ll choose him over these morons.

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you.” Yeah right, Cas has known a lot of heroes and she’s attended their funerals. She knows more about heroes than Rogers can hope to comprehend. He’s just a battle hungry runt with a gun and a Frisbee who got lucky.

“I’d love to meet them,” Her tone is cold now, “My dad is a hero so before you come after him about respect, how about you show some yourself, Captain America.” She’s so angry right now at these stupid mortals and their entitlement.

“A hero?” She could put her fist through his teeth. It would be easy, “The only thing people like you two fight for is yourselves.” He raises a hand and points while holding eye contact with her. This ignorant little man….His finger must be in her father’s face, “You’re not the types to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you.” That would be a pointless death because….

“I think I would just cut the wire.” Her father doesn’t back down even with a supersoldier’s hand in his face.

He looks around the room with a smirk like he’s just won, “Always a way out.”

So surviving isn’t heroic? “Because laying down and dying is just so brave.” This malaka really needs to back up. Now. She’s running very low on patience and restraint. “That’s called quitting.”

“I don’t know if you're a threat,” He says to her, “But you better stop pretending to be heroes.” What? How dare he after everything her father has done for her and the others. How dare he act as though he has the right to revoke the word hero like he’s the Queen of England bestowing knighthoods.

Cassandra Stark wants to kill this man.

“A hero like you?” Her father puts a restraining hand on her shoulder again and she’s sorely tempted to remove it. He’s in her way. “You’re a laboratory experiment, Rogers.” Oh, ouch. Cas will let this happen then and if it goads Rogers into attacking first then even better, “Everything special about you came out of a bottle.” Super strength without the downside of being hunted for what he is. Such unfair bullshit and he talks like he’s a hero. Rogers had everything handed to him while she had to drag herself to where she is now. The rest of the room has quieted down while they’re waiting for whatever this turns into. It’ll be perfect for her.

She loves fighting in front of an audience.

“Put on the suit. Let’s go a few rounds.” Dammit. She wants to fight him but for some reason Rogers challenges her father. Hmmm….maybe he’s afraid of her and thinks her father is the easier fight. If that’s the case then this idiot doesn’t understand what her father is capable of. He could obliterate this mortal in an instant.

Wait….why would her father kill him?

….gods, her head….

Hold on….no, no, no….not right. This isn’t right. Something’s not right. Cas doesn’t….why would Cas want to kill a man because he’s ignorant and annoying? She doesn’t...

Thor starts laughing but she’s still so confused and angry, “You people are so petty and tiny.” That...that makes her furious too but it shouldn’t because she knows Thor could wreck her. There’s no reason….

“Yeah, this is a team.” Dr. Banner says but it feels like it’s through a fog. She rubs her temples and tries to think while her father brings his hand to his forehead and squints. Did he notice something too? Is something….there’s something doing….something?

Fury talks again and she nearly sees red, “Agent Romanoff, could you escort Dr. Banner back to his-” Oh gods, they’re so stupid. She forgot? Or did it make her forget? The scepter with mind altering abilities could do quite a lot of damage if it gets the ‘Other Guy.’ That must be why Fury wants him out...why didn’t they just say that?

“Where?” Dr. Banner snaps, “You rented my room.”

Fury goes for placating, “The cell was just in case-” The spear must have been feeling for the most dangerous target. They were all in one place and the tensions were high. It must have been easy and the scepter must be much smarter than a simple weapon.

“In case you needed to kill me.” Dr. Banner is definitely the most dangerous person in the room even if Cas never felt he was a danger until now, “But you can’t, I know. I tried.” She stiffens as he moves around the desk that the spear is on. She wants to move but she also wants to avoid setting him off, “I got low. I didn’t see an end, so, I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out.” She wants to be empathetic and she wants to calm him down…. “So, I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk.” But he’s picked it up and made himself into a threat unless someone can get through to him. And she’s not in a good place right now, “You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?” Not really. He can keep that secret. 

Cas shifts just a few inches to put herself into a position to get her father out of the way if something happens.

“Dr. Banner,” Rogers manages to talk in an even manner, “Put down the scepter.”

The man in question looks up and down confused. There’s still anger on his face though maybe if they...the computer beeps to notify them that the Tesseract’s been located.

Oh, right...weird. Cas almost forgot why they were doing this in the first place. They need to find the Tesseract. That spear is one hell of a whammy. They never noticed that it started acting on them and her skull is pounding like she just took a punch from Thalia before she became a huntress.

Dr. Banner drops the spear and crosses the room, “Sorry kids, you don’t get to see my party trick after all.” At this point, it’s probably for the best. No one here is stable currently.

“You located the Tesseract.” Thor sounds surprised which she finds highly insulting, frankly more than she should, but did he think that they wouldn’t find it?

Her father in an attempt to be helpful speaks while pinching the space between his brows, “I could get there the fastest.” She would comment on the many ways that’s a bad idea but she’s breathing and counting backwards from one hundred by sevens. Now that she’s aware that the anger was fabricated or at least some of it was she needs to focus.

“The Tesseract belongs on Asgard,” Oh? “No human is a match for it.”

“Olympus might have something to say about that, false god.” She winces. Yeah, this isn’t all her but definitely part her. It’s like the one time she met Ares in person and not surrounded by all of those other gods. His presence makes it almost impossible to maintain an even temperament and nothing you say is falsified; it just comes out the most antagonistic way possible. She should have noticed that something was influencing her.

Somehow her father and Rogers have started fighting again leaving Cas this close to shouting at all of them because they still haven't realized someone is messing with them. Loki is messing with them.

Oh shit, this had to be planned, “Who’s with-” She almost got to finish that sentence.

_ MOVE! _

That happened instead. Cas tackles her father against the wall in time for an explosion to rock the entire ship and set part of the lab on fire. What in Hades?

They were attacked on a ship with retro reflective panels and all the latest in stealth technology.

“I thought this ship was cloaked!” She yells in Fury’s general direction.

“Compromised agents.” Malaka. He should have considered that before. The spy paranoia should have covered that possibility.

Rogers pulls himself up from where he landed and looks at her father, “Put on the suit.” Yep, that is a solid plan.

“Yeah,” Her father agrees and starts to push her out the door. Not super effective but she’s going in that direction anyway.

She double checks for the earwig that she never took out, “J, open coms with relevant parties.” He’ll get her to the important folks. She looks down the corridor and heads in the direction of her father’s armor.

Jarvis obliges a little too well but at least she knows where to go,  _ “Number three engine is down.”  _ That’s unfortunate. She corrects course towards the damaged engine instead.

“Dad, you good to get to the suit?” She’d rather head directly there because he’s just going to blast out of the bay. That’s a detour for her and this would be faster.

“Go! I’ll meet you there. Call out anything serious.” Cool, she can work with that.

_ “Turbine looks mostly intact,”  _ Good news from the random Shield guy,  _ “but it’s impossible to get out there to make repairs while we’re in the air.”  _ They can fix that. Maybe. She’ll have to see how bad it is in person.

“Rogers!” She locks eyes with the Captain before she leaves, “You’re going to have to secure the bridge or keeping this boat in the air is pointless.” After he covers her father to the landing bay for the suit, of course.

He nods in agreement, “Good luck.” Cas gives him a little salute and then takes off leaving Rogers with her father. She needs to take the direct route to the engine so that they don’t fall out of the sky and die a horrible death.

_ “Somebody’s gotta get outside and patch that engine.” _

_ “Stark!” _ Hey, Fury’s still bossy,  _ “You copy that.” _

Her father is already several steps ahead of Fury,  _ “We’ve got it covered.” _

Cas manages maybe fifty feet before she runs into company, “Yeah, totally,” She says as she disarms a man in riot gear before kicking him into a wall, “Hey, do your people have insurance? Because I think I just broke this man’s arm.” She’s still pretty angry.

_ “My agents are well taken care of.” _ That wasn’t ominous.  _ “But this is more people than I’m missing.” _ So Loki ‘recruited’ from elsewhere too, fun.

Another turn becomes a confrontation with three more mortals armed with automatic weaponry. She’s so not in the mood for this. Cas has never had a hangover but she imagines that it feels something like this. “I’m here to accept your surrender.”

They don’t surrender. Rather than bring her weapon into this, Cas takes advantage of the narrow hallway and gets in too close for them to shoot without hitting each other. It’s not clear how exactly the mind control works but they don’t seem inclined towards friendly fire. That makes things easier.

Cas will admit later that she’s less gentle with these people than she'd normally be against a mortal but for now….well they’re breathing.

She grabs one agent by the barrel of his gun and pulls him towards her while planting her foot in his abdomen. It will be very bruised later but he’ll most likely get to keep his spleen. She thinks.

Cas originally planned to flip the second man on top of the first but the ceiling was a bit shorter than she was expecting it to be. Judging by the pop and the scream, his ankle is rather damaged.

Goon numero tres is lucky. Cas just kicks off the wall and punches him in the face. It cracks his riot mask and he goes down hard. There’s only a concussion in his future. Even if he is Shield, Cas doesn’t feel bad. There are far better means of employment than this.

The rest of the trip to engine three goes about the same way. 

When she arrives the whole place is a mess. The maintenance room has been completely blasted out and there’s wires and sparks flying everywhere. Wonderful, but according to system diagnostics the turbine is salvageable so they should be able to get it up and running. She spots a man pinned under some debris with two additional workers trying to help him. Yeah, that’s not going to work out, “Move.”

She must have sounded fairly authoritative because they scramble out of the way allowing her to ease the beam off of his pinned leg. The other’s are quick to drag him off with a thank you. With any luck, they’ll make it to the medbay unaccosted, but she has larger issues to focus on at the moment.

“J, up my volume and cut the chatter.” She needs to talk to her dad directly. “Old man, I’m here. The cooling system is down but I think it’s viable. No floor though, so I’m limited.” She starts poking around to see if she can find any operational terminals but it looks like they’re going old school manual on this thing. The air is a bit thin out here but she’s breathed Tartarus so she’ll make due.

_ “It’s a good thing one of us can fly then,”  _ He arrives on the scene,  _ “Okay, that’s going to have to be brought back online first before I can access the rotors, work on dislodging the debris.” _

Right, online means rebooting, “Where’s a control panel?” His suit should be able to detect it. From where she’s standing nothing looks to be working.

_ “Over there,”  _ He points helpfully to a small opening that’s within her reach….it’s just over a 30,000 foot drop. Whatever. Magic induced migraine or not, Cas has a job to do. It takes a bit of a running jump and some wall scrambling but all of the gymnastics she does pays off.

There’s some smoke damage in the room and she hopes that this isn’t also ruined while forcing the locked panel open and sliding out the relay switches, “Shit.” It’s all in the red.

_ “Kid?” _

“I’m fine,” Physically, mentally she’s still reeling from the scepter, “The whole thing’s overloaded it’s going to take a minute.”

_ “Oh, is that all.”  _ At least her father seems fine,  _ “Hop to it. I need that ready to go once I’ve got the turbine ready to spin.” _

It takes her longer than she would like to admit to flip all of the relays back and confirm that they’re intact. Gods, her head really hurts. It’s up to nausea levels and blurring at the edges of her vision. That may also be due to the fact that she’s nearing thirty hours sans nap time, stupid Loki. Or that she’s huffing mostly unpressurized air in a tiny room that shouldn’t have a window….Either way, she finishes and slides the panel back into place, “All set, over here. How’s the rotor?”

There’s a whine from a repulsor followed by a crash implying that her father just blasted through,  _ “Even if I clear this thing, it won’t re-engage without a jump.”  _ Oh no, don’t say it.  _ “I’m going to have to get in there and push.” _

He said it... “That is not an intelligent decision.” The armor is really amazing but once the rotor gets up to speed it’ll flay her father alive.

_ “There’s a stator control unit across the way from you,” _ Cas peeks her head out and spots the conveniently red lever. Again, it’s across the 30,000 foot drop, stupid Loki,  _ “Use it to reverse to the polarity.” _

That could work. The inversion would disengage the maglev so that friction would keep the turbine from getting up to speed before her father exits. She just has to get there and probably hold it in position because these things are for emergencies not easy use.

There’s another jolt and then she’s got the feeling of descending faster than is probably advisable,  _ “Stark, we’re losing altitude.” _ Now that’s happening too.

_ “Yeah, noticed.” _

Alright, Cas decides to be lazy because she’s earned it and uses her spear to make the ten foot jump. “I’m ready, dad, let me know when.” Also, they’re technically falling so it’s a safety measure at this point to take the easiest and most direct route.

_ “Standby.”  _ She can’t see what he’s doing but Cas thinks she sees a red reflection suggesting that her father’s using his laser cutter. And then she hears a large crash,  _ “Debris is gone. Be ready.” _ There’s a large groaning noise from the metal as her father starts to push it but at least it’s turning. Shield can make further repairs after they land.

“No problems over here,” She stands at the ready by the control unit. Of course, because Cas had to open her mouth and jinx herself, “Shit.” An armed man enters the room. She’s going to blame that lapse in judgement on her falling blood oxygen levels. Normally, she’d consider giving him a chance because he’s a mortal but that guys holding a grenade, “I got baddies.” And she’s been watching too much BBC….but Sherlock. Cas throws her spear at the guy’s feet before he can pull the pin and warps only to shove him as hard as she can into the two men immediately behind him. Shit, “Dad, there’s a lot. I’ll be quick.” There’s around seven(?).

Cas isn’t stupid enough to let her opponent’s get up off the floor so a few quick hits to the helmets makes sure that they stay there. It doesn’t help that they’re trying to swarming her, probably to prevent the engine repairs. A lucky shot clips her side but she barely notices with her upgraded vest, never leave home without it, there’s a hole in her shirt though. The shooter quickly regrets his decision to open fire when jams her elbow into his chest making him double over and leaving his face vulnerable to her knee.

At the end of the hall, another man steps out and starts shooting from roughly twenty feet away and she ducks around the doorway for cover. The feeling of dropping begins to taper off and lets her know that the turbine is starting to do its job and stabilize their altitude.

_ “Cas, I need you on the lever.” _ Malaka. Yeah, that means her dad needs her now.

“Be right there,” Cas might be fast enough to throw her spear before this dude can get the shot off but that’s an unnecessary risk, “One more and I’m not looking to eat a bullet.” Another beat goes by and she hears the last gunman begin to advance so she crouches. It’s a little harsh but this guy’s about to catch her spear with his leg. When he’s close enough Cas rolls out and lunges. Her non-dominant arm pushes and pins his gun down while the other stabs him right in the thigh.

This man is never walking without a limp again but she’s nice enough to leave it in so that he doesn’t bleed out. 

_ “Lever! Now!” _ Crap.

She turns and jumps to make it up to the platform but another godsdamned person starts shooting at her and she crouches to make her way to the lever. Her father is out of time but the grated floor doesn’t exactly provide much cover. Regardless of the risk Cas pulls the level just as she hears a quiet ‘uh-oh’ from her father.

“Dad!” She shouts over the sound of the bullet spray. There’s no reply but she shouldn’t have worried because Iron Man comes rocketing in and tackles the last of the goon squad. “Dad!” She warps to her spear which is still very much in a person’s leg but she can worry about that later. The lights are flickering on the suit and her father is just sort of laying there, “Old man?”

“Yeah, kid. I’m alright.” He sighs, “What took you so long?”

She looks around and shrugs, “I was just messing around. Shooting the breeze.” She sighs heavily and slumps down next to her father, “Today sucks. We deserve a vacation.”

“Do superheroes take vacations?” She huffs in response, “Well, you’d know better than me since you’ve been doing all this for such a long time.”

“Uh, alien invasions are a first for me,” She pants while looking at all of the downed mortals, “So are actual henchmen, like do they network? Is there a job fair for henching?”

“Kid, stop talking.” Yeah, her brain is all over the place right now so she just leans her head against the wall and hopes that someone comes by before any of her opponents wake up. “Alright, break’s over.” The suit must have finished diagnostics. He stands and takes his helmet off before whistling, “I hope there’s security footage of this.”

She cracks a smile from her place against the cool metal, “What? Of teeny tiny Cassandra Stark ruining the evil plans?” They barely put up a fight.

“Yes,” He smiles back, “A proud father is allowed to enjoy watching his daughter beat up the bad guys.” 

Rather than go down that conversation street she says, “So….playboy?”

Her father’s formerly satisfied face falls, “I said that in front of you….Don’t tell Pepper.”

“A secret from the Queen? That’s high risk, old man.”

He rolls his eyes at her, “Right, what do you want, parasite?”

Hmmmm…. “London.”

“What? Why? We haven’t even confirmed that we’re putting a tower up there yet.” Yeah, but he’s been going back and forth with Pepper while leaving Cas to New York. She loves the city but she’s also grown used to a certain quantity of travel. “You know what fine, next time you can go and be bored.”

“Sure, never been,” Then she realizes something….Cas totally wanted to hurt her dad while under the influence of the scepter. It was a fleeting moment but by the gods that thing is messed up, “Am I the only one with the migraine from the magical devil on my shoulder?”

“No,” He looks confused, “I almost punched Captain America and nearly yelled at you for getting in the way.”

“I almost told you to shut up. Twice. And nearly shoved you.” Which is weird. Yes, her father is a really frustrating man but that’s really disrespectful. She’s glad they both wanted to deck Rogers though.

He ignores the second half which she appreciates, “That wasn’t the first time you’ve thought that.” No, but she’s never had to fight to hold it in before.

She almost manages to get a real laugh out. Then,  _ “Agent Coulson is down.” _ From director Fury.

_ “A medical team is on its way to your location.”  _ Some Shield person says.

_ “They’re here.”  _ Damn,  _ “They called it.” _ She sighs and closes her eyes for a moment. Cas wasn’t naive enough to think that this conflict would be without deaths and she wouldn’t exactly call Coulson a friend but….damn.

Her father looks more affected than her but sadly she’s almost used to the idea of casualties even as she tries to minimize them, “You okay?” She gets a stiff nod in return, not that she expected anything else, “Give me a hand.” She doesn’t feel like standing on her own. Her father pulls her up and she walks on over the man currently in possession of her spear, “Yeah, I didn’t think this one through.”

She’s going to wait for a clean up crew to come by, “J, get some people sent over here. Prisoners and whatnot. And a medic for them too,” She wants someone else around to take care of that for her. Cas can summon the spear back but it’s going to bleed. Nasty.

All of this is nasty business. Today sucks and Loki is stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may note that Cas has an unfortunate habit of developing and us and them category in her brain. My girl isn't perfect.
> 
> But hey! We finally have Iron Man working directly with Cassie so that's something, right?
> 
> I love all of you!!!!


	6. It's Not That Easy...Is It?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay....there's a bit of what I feel to be some hand waviness with regards to spans of time but I hope it's forgivable.
> 
> Also, I kept the dialogue in from Tony and Loki's conversation because I like that scene and I didn't want to teleport Cas from the helicarrier to NY.
> 
> Also guys, I love Eleanor Roosevelt as a historical figure. She's so cool.

So let's tally up the current score.

Loki escaped with the scepter.

Dr. Banner is gone and the lab was destroyed so they don’t have the Tesseract’s location.

Thor is possibly dead.

The helicarrier’s nonessential systems are almost universally down.

Her father’s armor is a wreck.

She’s exhausted and her snacks are gone.

They’re currently losing and she’s feeling antsy but that could also be due to the way Fury and the Stern Lady (Agent Hill maybe? Whatever.) are staring down her, her father, and Rogers from their seats at the bridge conference table. The bridge itself is empty and all staff have been redistributed to other parts of the ship to patch it up so that they can remain airborne and restart systems.

“These were in Phil Coulson’s jacket.” What? Fury tosses some cards on the table with a wet splat. They look like Captain America trading cards….right. Coulson asked her about heroes. He must have been fascinated by them, “I guess he never did get you to sign them.” Ugh...Coulson hasn’t been dead thirty minutes and he’s being used to manipulate them.

These people….

No, she needs to table her issues with their morals for now in favor of protecting the planet. Cas doesn’t need to like them but she does need to prioritize.

The Captain reaches for one of the blood stained cards and Fury continues, “We’re dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor….” Thank you, Mr. Pirate for reiterating what she already knows, “I got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye.” He leans over the table, “Maybe I had that coming.” He sighs before pacing around the room, “Yes, Shield closely monitors and potentially eliminates threats to the world.” They miss a lot of them, “Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all of my chips on that number though because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, some here are aware of this, called the Avengers Initiative.” 

Cas maintains that it’s a crap name but he keeps talking, “The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could.” Well, that already exists. The demigods have been doing that for a very long time. Aliens have just tripped her up a bit.

Next to her, her father starts getting twitchy in his seat. It’s uncharacteristic of him to give away so much in front of people he doesn’t trust but they’re under an unusual amount of strain, “Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes.” Her father lunges out of his chair and leaves the room. It doesn’t particularly surprise her. For her to expect him to be okay right now wouldn’t be fair and for him to act anything other than okay while in front of her wouldn’t be fair either. He needs some space and there’s no danger at the moment, “Well, it’s an old fashioned notion.”

This is as good an opportunity as any to get a better understanding of the man behind Shield and properly come to some sort of truce until they stop Loki.

“It’s not,” She makes eye contact with Fury and for the first time it's not out of anger or stubbornness, “It’s not old fashioned. The heroes are out there. They’ve always been out there protecting all this,” Cas makes a vague motion, “Everything from the things no one else knows exists.” Way better than Shield because they don’t assassinate people.

“And yet, we’ve never heard of you until now.” He sits in her father’s recently vacated chair.

“Can you really blame us?” She tilts her head at this man. It’s crazy to think about. He has the same goal but their methodologies put them at odds with each other, “After you withheld my grandfather’s research? After Phase II, after the Index? ” That’s some 1984 levels of not okay right there.

“And what would you suggest?”

“Not ignoring the Six Amendment for starters.” She doesn’t care what they accused some of the enhanced of doing. They don’t get to kill people because it’s easier than bringing them in alive.

He quirks a small smile, “Well, as soon as we can handle these threats without putting good men and women in danger and without endangering the public….” Not every ‘enhanced threat’ is a demigod and even if they were….Cas cannot claim that all of them are the good guys. That would be a lie. She’s fought against demigods before in Manhattan and with what they can do….well, NYPD standard issue cuffs wouldn’t hold long. She can sympathize with his plight but they need to find a better way and of course it’s stupid to tell someone to stop doing something because it’s wrong but then not offer a better solution….which she doesn’t currently have.

Cas can stomp and shout about injustice until the cows come home but even if everyone agrees with her they need a better option otherwise a wholesale stop could make things worse.

Okay….maybe Fury isn’t all terrible, “I’ll concede to that and consider helping but please give me one example of when ignorance really kept the people safe,” But he and his people still have some very fucked up ideas of justice.

“Says the member of the race claiming religious persecution as a defense for secrecy.” That’s not entirely applicable because they’re the minority group looking for coexistence and not assassination MIB but she’s trying for some common ground here.

She nods instead, “It’s fair point but systems like the Index that target an entire demographic with an average age of I believe fourteen,” The influx of kiddies really dropped their class average and by the sharp intake of breath from Rogers it gets her point across, “Is a little fascist for America.”

“There was the impression that enhanced individuals were few and far between. Causing a mass panic because the average person can’t protect themselves was something to be avoided,” Fury just shakes his head, “I had eyes all over the world and I missed the superfriends.”

It’s too bad that he’s Shield because Cas could have one or two good conversations with this man, “Don’t beat yourself up, Pirate-Man, we’ve been doing this since long before Shield came along.” She grins, “And saving the world since the dawn of civilization.”

“Is that a common occurrence?” There’s doubt dripping from every inch of the man...

Since they’ve decided to be honest with each other, “We’ve fought and died for this world more than you want to know if you ever want to sleep at night. This is just the latest attempt.”

That seems to shock the table, “Fourteen, you said.”

People always lock onto the age, “Don’t worry. We keep them out of it,” Mostly, “But monster slaying has a high mortality rate.”

“Monster slaying?” The man can only sigh but Cas doesn’t feel bad because he wanted to know, “Monster slaying kids and your problem is the Index.”

“No,” Nu-uh, no twisting things, Nicky. They’re ma king progress, “I’m anti gross human rights violations. Eleanor Roosevelt is a cousin of mine,” Technically speaking even if they don’t count relations on the godly side, “A Child of Zelus, so I’m a fan of the UN’s declaration of human rights. Ditch the Index and you’ll find the Starks are suddenly less anti-Shield.” Not that it’ll change much. Natalie Rushman ruined any chance for amiability but they can still have professionalism instead of a locked door.

He doesn’t say anything after that but gets up and sweeps out with that impressive trench coat. The Stern Lady follows him leaving Cas sitting across from Rogers. Ugh, this is awkward and she doesn’t want to do this but it’s the right thing to do and they need to clear the air, “I owe you an apology, Captain.” The conversation with Fury was much easier but Cas isn’t looking to get into another divisive argument when there are more important things to deal with.

He snaps back to the present moment out of whatever daydream he’s slipped into. The trading card is sitting limp in his finger, “What for?”

“The uh….that lab rat comment was out of line. So...sorry.” She meant it at the time but that’s not something she would have said out loud. Oh, she feels so much better now. Cas would also apologize for wanting to knock his teeth out but she never said or did it so she’s fine there.

He chuckles a little before tossing the card back onto the table, “I didn’t exactly put my best foot forward either. You weren’t wrong about me being disrespectful. I demanded it without giving it and I apologize.” 

“Accepted,” Yay, air is officially cleared, “We back on for those classes on the modern era?”

He crosses his arms and leans back in the chair, “You don’t strike me as the patient teacher type.”

She’s going to enjoy this, “I didn’t mean me.” It’ll be fun, “Believe it or not, you’re not the first time traveler from the early twentieth century that I know.”

“You’re not serious.” Cas just grins back, “Your family is impossible to understand. I didn’t get Howard either.” Not the best comparison but she’ll choose to view it as a compliment since Rogers knew Howard Stark the scientist and not the attempted parent. The Captain glances in the direction her father went, “Will he be alright?”

She doesn’t waste time asking for clarification, “Yeah,” They’re allies but Cas isn’t about to talk to Captain America about her concerns for her father. When Rogers looks like he’s about to ask her something else she can guess what it is so she cuts it off, “If you’re so worried you can go talk to him yourself.” It’ll probably be fine. Worst case scenario is her father verbally eviscerates Rogers again.

“I think I will,” It could work or it could backfire and be hilarious….if her father wasn’t having an existential crisis again.

Last chance for her to stop it….Eh, why the hell not? Feels like a good idea, “Whatever. I’ll be here.” Cas folds her head on her arm and prepares to take a nap. When the opportunity strikes a demigod will rest or eat. Food isn’t an option so napping on the nearest available surface it is.

~~~

“Cas!” No, a few more minutes, “Kid, up and at ‘em. Time to go.”

What? She rolls her head to side and blinks one eye up at her father. Looks like he’s sorted himself out for the moment, “It’s break time.”

“I found Loki,” That gets her attention, “And you’re never going to guess where.”

She rubs her palms into her eyes in an effort to wake herself up, “Enlighten me, I’m just dying to know.”

“New York,” What? “The tower.” She blinks a bit stupidly for a moment because no way. It can’t possibly be that simple.

“The Arc Reactor?” But come on. He can’t have planned his ‘invasion’ for the one city that has an at the ready standing force that can probably match him.

“Jarvis can’t shut it down from here. We’ve been locked out.” Damn. “He should be able to shut down the reactor once we’re closer but at this point….” He trails off now that he’s got her conscious.

That sucks, “Which means I can’t have a few demigods storm the beaches. They could set something off since we don’t know what else has been done to the system.” Okay, then. Cas stands and pulls out her phone, “Let’s get to work then.” The thing has a signal everywhere but in the Labyrinth.

**_Me:_ ** _ You aren’t going to believe what happened now _

Her father starts leading the way towards the hanger bay, “There’s a few patches we need to do to the suit before it’s ready for sustained flight and you need to get into more than just basic protection.” Yeah, she’s got some more light armor to strap on to herself.

**_Katara:_ ** _ I’m scared _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ What now? _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ The hell did you do now? _

**_Princess:_ ** _ Cas… _

And her father had been concerned at the level of beat down she put it through during testing, “Aren’t you glad I got Clarisse to help test it?”

**_Me:_ ** _ So Loki is def not related to Blondie _

_ He’s an idiot that targeted my family for some reason? _

_ Guess where his invasion is happening _

_ From a single, centralized location _

“No, I did not need to see you thrown across an arena only to get up and laugh.” That was a good time. She spent the next several hours achy and bruised but it was totally worth it.

**_Katara:_ ** _ wtf why r people always attacking my town? _

An excellent question Percy, that can be something they talk about later.

**_Me:_ ** _ Does it matter? _

_ The area around GCT has a lot of foot traffic _

_ Make it go away _

_ Get everyone you can but I swear to all the gods if you let a little hero under 17 out there there will be retribution _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ Why can’t I just Sparta kick Loki off Stark Tower _

_ I already know my way around _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ I assume he already took the tower _

**_Me:_ ** _ And commandeered the Arc Reactor _

_ If we fudge their plans midway their setup could go critical _

_ Bye-bye Manhattan _

  
  


As a whole, the helicarrier is currently a mess. Loose wires, sparks, and smoke are present in nearly every corridor and for her father’s sake more than her’s Cas resolutely ignores any red stains on the floors and walls. Not that it’s bothering the crew who are scrambling around doing repairs.

**_Katara:_ ** _ DO NOT BLOW UP MANHATTAN _

**_Princess:_ ** _ Let’s avoid that shall we _

**_Me:_ ** _ How many volunteers? _

**_Princess:_ ** _ Don’t freak out _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ People have been coming in since last night _

_ There’s around four hundred demigods in Lamark High-Rise _

_ And more on the way from camp now that we know where to go _

Cas pauses where she’s walking and her father notices her staring down at her phone with wide eyes, “What is it?” He says with moderate concern.

He could use some good news, “Just taking a moment to pity Loki. When Kronos invaded, he attacked from multiple fronts and boxed us in. I’ve got four hundred demigods who are excited to do the same to whatever Loki sends in.” And that’s just the amount of demigods that are already there. The rest will flood in from Long Island now that they have an official target. It’s mid-May so the camp isn’t at full capacity but there’s easily another two hundred ready to join in on the fun.

**_Me:_ ** _ Focus on clearing the streets _

_ Preventing casualties should be the goal _

_ I don’t know how much time you have _

_ It’s easily 45 min till we leave and a 45 min flight _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ Oh goodie, 90 mins to secure Manhattan _

_ That sounds familiar _

_ You bringing the other Asgardian _

**_Me:_ ** _ Assuming Loki waits till we get there _

_ Thor’s MIA maybe alive _

_ Not entirely sure…. _

_ Hope so, he’s alright _

But that doesn’t make him look particularly reassured, “If they’re too young…”

“All 17+,” She’s quick to add, “The rest are in Long Island should the need arise but I doubt it. Four hundred demigods to hold Manhattan until we can gain control of the portal device. Yeah, that’ll be a no brainer.” She held the Empire State Building with a little under three hundred for almost three days.

**_Katara:_ ** _ Why’d u lose the friendly alien? _

**_Princess:_ ** _ I wanted to see the alien _

_ You said he looked like young Patrick Swayze _

**_Me:_ ** _ That was my dad _

_ Not me _

_ But still an accurate description _

_ Maybe he’ll come back he wanted to meet Annabeth _

He crosses his arms and tilts his head back, “As far as introductions go, saving the world isn’t the worst.”

Cas has to agree with that logic, “No, it’s not. Especially with Iron Man there. A well known figure in his own right.” She has to laugh because, “Rhodey’s going to be so mad that he missed this.” The Air Force has him and War Machine off the radar for some op in the Middle East. They could contact him if they really wanted but it could put those with him in danger.

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ We need to find a way to chase the mortals away _

**_Me:_ ** _ Put the Stoll bros on it _

_ Hermes Cabin can get people moving _

_ You can’t sweet talk all of NY Pipes so don’t try it _

**_Katara:_ ** _ I can send out Mrs. O’Leary _

**_Princess:_ ** _ Maybe Percy can explode some water mains _

_ It’ll get emergency services out there too _

_ Close the busier roads around the tower _

_ Few blocks of Park Ave maybe _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ Seaweed brain get on that _

**_Me:_ ** _ Get parts of 5th through to 3rd _

_ But make sure lanes away from the tower are clear _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ Do we need the chariots too? _

That’s a good question. She doesn’t know what sort of environment the alleged space army is coming from. Are they coming straight from the vacuum? Marching in from another planet? Or is there a mother ship? Is air support needed?

**_Me:_ ** _ Cover all the bases _

_ I want archers on the roofs too _

**_Katara:_ ** _ What about North to South _

_ Is 40th to 50th good? _

_? _

_ That’s a lot _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ That should be enough space if there’s only one entry point _

_ We don’t want to give them too much room to spread _

_ It’ll be like the Labyrinth with that region being the woods _

  
  


“He’ll get over it,” Her father continues walking to the elevator that will take them to a sort of intact working bay for damaged ships. They should be able to make last minute repairs down here, “Go suit up,” He says as the doors open, “The moment the armor is ready we’re out of here.” Sounds like a plan. 

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ We’ll be ready _

**_Katara:_ ** _ One severe road flood coming up _

**_Princess:_ ** _ See you soon, Stategos _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ Don’t bring Shield, Cas _

_ I don’t want them around my siblings _

**_Me:_ ** _ See you when I see you _

Her completed light armor is a glorious thing. There’s a more standard design that the Hephaestus kids play around with for individuals on a commission basis (her father’s idea actually; as if they needed a micro economy in addition to a political system). This one is practically tailored to her. The only region with the added liquid shock layer is her torso; everything else is in the triweave. It’s a gunmetal grey not far off from War Machine actually (Rhodey pointed it out and her father was less than pleased) with blue. Her blue or rather the blue her father noticed that she likes so he threw it in because the armor was boring….whatever, as long as it does it’s job.

It’s thicker between articulating points and the knuckles but nothing to impede her movement. It’s heavy enough that she notices it’s there but light enough that it won’t slow her down. They designed it during Christmas 2011 not that Cas thought she’d ever have the occasion to wear the full set. She really should have known better.

~~~

The soldering iron is a relaxing familiarity in her hand as she tries to help her father salvage the armor for one last trip back to the tower. It’ll hold up, she thinks. It should anyways since they’re using actual equipment and not duct tape or something equally demigod in origin. Speaking of….there are several hundred demigods all seventeen or older all amassing in Manhattan currently and gods, Percy was right, it’s always New York isn’t it?

Were the Fates preparing them for this battle all of their lives? Crazy.

“How’s the cavalry?” Some of them will be on pegasi….

“They’ll be ready,” She sighs, “Herding the locals away is proving to be a pain.” According to Percy, some New Yorkers have taken up the oldest and noblest of their traditions. This means that some are sitting in their cars and honking at the water rather than turning down one of the open one ways. North bound is open from 42nd street and South bound is open from 48th. It must look really weird for the mortals down there but Grover has been driving Percy around so that he can explode some roads with water powers.

Anyone coming into the terminal by train is probably going to be advised to take the subways because getting a cab isn’t likely to happen right now. Yay, get the mortals underground, inside, and away from the fighting!

Fighting...yeah, fighting off another invasion of New York City is not the way Cas thought they would be doing this but it….it fits. It really is like the times before this were practice for this moment. The first time the damage was reversed by the gods, the second time in Camp Half-Blood they rebuilt with their own hands, and now they’ll be fighting with the mortals awake and aware.

The system she’s currently poking at engages, “Right, you’re all set. I’m going to meet Cap in the landing bay. Are you good?” It’s not the first time she’s asked that question in the last twenty four hours and he’s probably getting annoyed since he’s the parent.

He tries to pretend that he can’t hear her over the blow torch he’s taking to his helmet so she waits rather than raise her voice, “Independence Day part two is new for both of us.” True but...

“An overwhelming army is an army,” It’s not her first rodeo but by the gods, please let it be her last. And not in the death way but in the ‘stop attacking my home’ way. The helmet’s ocular sensors click back on so she runs one more double check on the last minute repairs she’s completed on other parts of the suit.

The look her father gives her is so much heavier than what she normally sees on him. It’s not right. She really doesn’t like it. Her father is stupid nicknames and sassy one liners, not this. Cas is going to ruin Loki and his army for what he’s done here, “Be careful, Cassandra.”

She doesn’t care that they’re both messy and dirty at the moment, Cas steps into her father’s space and hugs him, “I’ll be fine. You watch yourself because Loki’s going to see you as a bigger target. Iron Man is a symbol and an effective defense measure.” Cas steps back, “Besides, I’ll be on the ground probably dragging idiots to cover more than I’ll be fighting.” That posting is subject to change but her father doesn’t need to worry about that too.

“Still,” He manages a weak smile, “Make good choices.”

“I always do,” It’s kind of her superpower.

~~~

They’re not exactly subtle as they make their way closer to a pillar between two F-22s (F-22 is a loose term because these things are supercharged compared to the standard model). Whatever, Cas steps though the busy clean up crews and intercepts Captain America and his two shadows.

Romanoff doesn’t surprise her since she’s been involved since the beginning but the other one,“Barton, was it?” He just escaped enslavement, “You good for this?” She can only see a bow on him but that’s not really something she can judge on because she has a spear, Rogers a shield, and Romanoff has...whatever she has. Cas is aware that the other woman can handle herself just fine.

He doesn’t miss a beat, “Says the rich kid in the shiny getup.”

Okay, Cas will take that, “Fighting monsters is a part of my lifestyle. Is everyone here prepared to keep up?” Rogers has a history with exactly one enhanced person, Red Skull, but it’s not always a transferable skill.

“War is war, Dr. Stark.” Point to the Captain, she acknowledges that with a nod. She’s still not convinced that this qualifies as a war but whatever, at this point personal feelings aren’t important.

“You seem past hiding, Stark.” Romanoff says calmly. Actually, Cas doesn’t think she speaks any other way.

She just grins in response, “Our ride awaits.” Cas points behind herself at the open Quinjet. It doesn’t look damaged and it’s in a less densely populated region of the hanger bay. “She’s even prepped for flight and fully loaded.”

“Lead the way.” And she does. Cas marches right up that ramp and casually takes a seat on the left hand side near the entrance.

There’s something satisfying about completely ignoring Shield employee number seventeen when he says, “Hey, you guys aren’t authorized to be in here.” She’d really like someone to try and make her move or to try and kick them out at this moment. It’s kind of a time crunch and they really need this jet.

“Son,” But then Rogers makes it even better, “Just don’t.”

Barton and Romanoff continue right around the stuttering man who just got shut down by the elder in the spangly outfit. Rogers not so subtly points him on his way which is equally beautiful and she wishes that she could have recorded it. Wait, Romanoff said there are internal cameras in these things….nice. She’ll snag that later and by she, Cas means Jarvis.

“Son?” She says as the good Captain sits down across from her. Her phone is out by now and she’s reviewing updates on where everyone is. Seems they’re approaching six hundred demigods on the island of Manhattan now and the Romans are sad that they’re on the other side of the country. Sucks to be them but the Greeks have another wannabe god to take down.

“Old habits,” He shrugs.

“Yeah, but you’re like….twenty seven? How many people are you calling son?” Cas thinks that man was older than Rogers actually. Not that she has much room to talk. It’s weird because she’s an oldie in the demigod circles but practically a baby here.

“It was normal back during the war,” Well then, that’s a history fact that she didn’t know. 

“Cool.” Though she isn’t sure how he would have addressed a woman? ‘Daughter’ sounds creepy so maybe ‘Miss’ but that sounds condescending. Ma’am? Whatever, questions for another time.

Cas sends out some messages to Annabeth and Clarisse specifically but open to others if needed.

**_Me:_ ** _ Catch me up, ladies _

_ How’s it looking down there _

_ Movement? _

_ Where’s our people at? _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ We’ve got archers on the surrounding buildings _

_ 50 pegasi _

_ The rest are on the ground _

_ And Clarisse decided to bring all of the flying chariots _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ We might need all of the flying chariots _

_ We don’t know what a space army looks like _

**_Me:_ ** _ Refresh my memory _

_ How many chariots is that? _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ It’s twenty seven _

_ The Hephaestus Cabin made twenty six more using the colossus _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ You can thank me later _

**_Me:_ ** _ Clarisse La Rue _

_ Champion for overkill is underrated _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ Again you can thank me later _

_ When I save your midget ass _

  
  


**_Me:_ ** _ Uncalled for _

_ I’m 30 minutes out _

_ Expect my dad in closer to 20 _

_ What do you think mortals see when a chariot flies overhead? _

  
  


**_Princess:_ ** _ A kite _

**_Katara:_ ** _ A really fat hawk _

**_Star-Girl:_ ** _ They probably barely notice a shadow _

_ Chariots are totally unexpected _

_ Won’t compute _

**_The Mean One:_ ** _ Salvation _

Cas would have been content to spend the rest of the flight in silence while trying to nap again but about twenty minutes later Romanoff turned to address the cabin, “I’m picking up reports of unusual activity.” Oops, she forgot to share, “The region around Stark Tower is having some sort of a seismic event. Multiple water mains have burst.”

Ha.

Right.

She should tell them.

“Is it Loki?” Rogers says and Cas decides to give it a minute to see what they can see.

“No,” Romanoff shakes her head, “This started away from the tower and worked its way in.” That’s considerate of Percy and Grover. There was a moment where Cas was concerned that Stark Tower would be blamed for the simultaneous bursts but if he was strategic about the starting point then they’re covered. Actually….no, it’s Percy. This was a beautiful coincidence.

“That’s uhhh….” She should fix the misconception, “That’s on me. I got a guy down there trying to chase the mortals away.”

“A guy?” Rogers is skeptical.

“Mortals,” And Barton sounds insulted. But Romanoff has nothing to add. She’s a quiet spy type but her presence and curiosity is still felt.

“Look, this is entirely on Loki and not me, but he totally picked the ordinary human city with the highest population of demigods to invade.” She raises her hands in an ‘I didn’t do it’ manner, “So there’s quite a few people down there that I’ve kept in the loop who are prepared to defend their home.”

“How many are we talking about here?” Ha….well to answer Captain America…

“More than enough to establish a perimeter, escort mortals/civilians, and probably bottleneck Loki’s forces. I don’t know enough about what he’s packing to say for certain on that last one.”

“You have an army,” No Romanoff, she does not have an army, “An army made up of a race of heroes.”

“I have volunteers that stepped up.” They’re not even paid for this sort of thing, “I mean I might try to get them pizza after this but it’s not their job or anything.”

It’s Barton that asks the blaring question, “How did Shield miss a demigod army in NY?”

To which she answers, “It’s not like they were looking. And again not an army.” More like a volunteer militia to fight some aliens. It’s a weird thought but Cas is trying to be a few steps ahead for when she has to explain her choices to Pepper later.

~~~

She’d like to say that her father was mildly humbled by recent events or the many demigods he’s just flown over. Honestly, that most likely didn’t help because they probably cheered as he flew by. He wasn’t by the way,  _ “It looks like Spring Break in Miami over here.”  _ Translation: There’s a lot of young people in crowds. The others aren’t looped into this particular call but once they get closer and Jarvis has command of the tower again he’ll open a secure line for this team to communicate,  _ “Looks like Selvig is on the roof.”  _ At which point, Cas will run off and hook up with a demigod team to protect the squishies,  _ “No portal yet.” _

Her father can focus on Loki and the portal. Maybe he can still stop it and render this whole mobilization a waste of time. Either way, “When we get there the focus should be shutting the portal down.” Assuming her father can’t prevent its opening.

_ “Sir, I’ve turned off the Arc Reactor but the device is already self-sustaining.”  _ Dammit, they weren’t fast enough for Jarvis.

“If we can get to it,” Romanoff replies.

“Dr. Stark is right,” She needs to give Rogers something else to call her. That’s too many syllables for fast communication but she doesn’t feel like first names with him yet, “The faster the door is closed the less time Loki has to bring in his army.”

_ “Shut it down, Dr. Selvig.” _ There’s a pause and some distorted talking that she can’t make out.

“Portals and aliens….” Poor Barton.

“If it’s any consolation, Katniss, you are taking all of this so well. There are mortals who have lost it after having this stuff dropped in their lap.” Mr. McLean will always be an example of how not to expose a mortal to magic.

_ “Okay…”  _ There must be some damage to the audio processing systems. That wasn’t actually a priority when they were patching up the suit.

_ “The barrier is pure energy. It’s unbreachable.” _ As sad as it is that it’s being used by the enemy, that’s pretty awesome and she hopes that her father manages to record something useful from how it’s produced….but it is not the time for her to be drooling over enemy tech.

_ “Yeah, I got that. Plan B.”  _ What? There is no plan B. She goes to unmute her side of the conversation.

“I wasn’t aware that there was a Plan B.” It must look weird to the other people in the cabin that didn’t realize she’s been following multiple conversations at the same time. “You’re trying to stop the portal opening. That’s all.”

_ “Sorry, kid. Gonna have to mute you. Loki’s here.” _ Oh gods, her father will never be humbled.

Cas checks back into the Quinjet, “The portal device is active and currently untouchable. And I’m pretty sure my dad’s about to talk with Loki.” There’s a few choice mutterings of ‘dammit Stark’ and its derivatives. “This might be on me. I’m big on giving people a chance to back down.” It’s a good sentiment at exactly the wrong time.

_ “Sir, the Mark VII is not ready for deployment.”  _ Oh, that’s plan B. She retracts her previous statement. Fair enough, his current suit has got quite a few miles built up.

_ “Then skip the spinning rims. We’re on the clock.”  _ There’s some features that aren’t quite ready yet but it’s flight capable and weapon systems should be online. She doesn’t think the sound system is up yet so no battle music. Not exactly a huge loss.

“Jarvis, give me penthouse audio.” If she remembers correctly the anchor bands are behind the...bar(?) so he’ll be inside with a mostly ready to deploy suit of armor alone against Loki. Wonderful.

_ “-me you’re going to appeal to my humanity.” _ That voice is Loki. The suit can’t be ready yet.

_ “Actually, I’m planning to threaten you.”  _ Cas would groan or yell if she could but there are others around and she needs them confident in what’s currently happening.

_ “You should have left your armor on for that.”  _ Cas trusts her father implicitly. She’s known him almost two years now.

_ “Yeah,”  _ But she would prefer to be there right now,  _ “But it’s seen a bit of mileage and you’ve got the glow stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?”  _ Ah, they are by the bar.

_ “Stalling me won’t change anything.” _

_ “No, no. Threatening.”  _ It’s possible that Cas has told her father too many stories about how Percy ‘I do what I want’ Jackson handles very powerful immortal beings. Insulting their capability has always worked for Percy to get what he wants and her father seems to have adapted this strategy to adopted Asgardian royalty.  _ “No drink. You sure? I’m having one.” _

Cas is starting to get impatient in her seat so she turns to Romanoff, “How far out are we?”

“Is something wrong at the tower?” Cas is a bit surprised that her father warrants what sounds like real concern from Romanoff.

_ “The Chitauri are coming.”  _ That must be his army….she must have missed that detail at some point,  _ “Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?” _

“Not yet,” There’s an implied but there will be soon that no one says.

It’s Rogers that reassures her, “Your father is a smart man.” Her father is brilliant but that doesn’t make him murder-proof, “He’ll be alright untill we get there.” Gods, she really wants to believe that he’s right but her dad is squishy and Loki is not. This is far from an ideal scenario.

_ “The Avengers for one. Cas hates the name and I admit it’s not the best. Not like Iron Man. Still ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’-type thing.”  _ It’s not helping her patience any when her father is clearly going the ‘antagonize the enemy into making a mistake’ method rather than the far safer ‘get them monologuing’ method which Cas prefers.

_ “Yes, I’ve met them.” _

_ “Yeah, it takes us a while to get any traction, I’ll give you that one. But let's do a head count here.” _ Or her father can flip the system and monologue instead while keeping Loki distracted and entertained while Jarvis finished booting up the Mark VII,  _ “Your brother, prince of Asgard, a supersoldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend, a man with breathtaking anger management issues, a demigod of Olympus, born warrior and all that jazz, a couple of master assassins and you, big fella,”  _ He’s getting way to into this right now.

“Arriving in New York airspace,” Barton points out helpfully.

Not that her father can hear because he  _ MUTED  _ her,  _ “You’ve managed to piss off every single one of them.” _

_ “That was the plan.”  _ Stupid.

_ “Not a great plan seeing as you also missed an entire race of heroes just waiting to protect the Earth.” _ He missed an entire race of heroes right outside the window. Does the Mist affect Asgardians?

_ “The Children of Olympus have always been scattered and disorganized. Your one child is of little consequence.”  _ That’s mean, somewhat true in the past but it’s still mean. They’re organized now….sort of.

_ “Sure.”  _ Cas hopes that someone gets a shot of Loki’s face when the demigods ruin his day. Her father continues,  _ “When they come and they will, they’ll come for you.” _

_ “I have an army.” _

_ “And we have a Hulk.” _ Good, he’s allowing the demigods to stay hidden for a little while longer. Loki can’t have any idea just how many live in NY right now.

_ “I thought the beast had wandered off.” _

_ “You’re missing the point. There is no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top.”  _ She has to wonder where her father has been hiding his epic improvised speech skills because that’s great right there.  _ “Maybe your army comes and maybe it’s too much for us,”  _ It won’t be but he’s still giving Loki one last chance to stand down,  _ “But it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.” _ Yeah, okay, maybe the name isn’t that bad.

_ “How will you friends, your daughter, have time for me, when they’re so busy fighting you?” _ Shit, she didn’t consider that Loki would make a go for her father. 

“Barton, how were you un-mind controlled?” It can’t be that hard...right? Even if it’s Iron Man that attacks them….Cas should be able to shut down the suit remotely through Jarvis worst comes to worst.

“I punched him in the face, why?” Romanoff answers for him and the Isle of Manhattan has just come into focus out the window. They need to be faster…

_ “This usually works…” _ What? Is...Is her father…Immune? How?

_ “Well, performance issues, it’s not uncommon.” _ Yeah, that’s her father. Crass in the face of death, _ “One out of five-”  _ There’s an sound like an impact. __

“Nevermind,” She can ponder that one later, “Jarvis? Status?”

_ “Nearly there, miss.” _

On the other end she can hear her slightly distressed father,  _ “Jarvis, anytime now.”  _

_ “You will all fall before me.” _

_ “Deploy! Deploy!”  _ Followed by the sound of glass shattering.

“Jarvis! Do you have him?” Was he thrown from the window? Can one of her people catch him instead?

_ “Systems operational, Miss. The Mark VII has been successfully deployed. I will be establishing contact as soon as possible.” _

She leans back, “Oh thank the gods….”

“Don’t thank them yet. Look.” Cas follows Romanoff’s directions and looks out the window to see the portal device shooting off energy into the air. She’s never seen anything like it before in her life. It’s like a stream of liquid light flowing upwards against gravity and it opens a great dark hole into the sky. From where they’re coming in it looks like it goes into a void...kind of like Tartarus. Only rather than dragging in and swallowing everything, she can see specks start to spill out. 

Damn, she’s going to have to praise Clarisse for her call on the chariots for this one. The battle has started and from the explosions she can assume that her father is somewhere in that stream of aliens that’s flying out of the wormhole. Yeah, that’s a wormhole.

_ “Miss, I took the liberty of contacting Ms. Chase. There is an open line of communication between her and several others.”  _ Jarvis is the absolute best. Honestly, he thinks of everything.

“Put them through,” Cas takes this moment to redo her ponytail because it was getting kind of saggy and she tries not to pull a face at the grease….a shower will be required after saving the world, again.

_ “Cassie! You told me this was an invasion!”  _ What? There’s an alien army spilling out from the sky. What else could this be?

“That’s what I’ve been told and that’s what I passed on.” She could defend herself but, “Is it not an invasion?”

Clarisse joins in on the talking,  _ “They’re firing on buildings and cars at random.”  _ Oh….  _ “There's almost no organization to their entry.” _

_ “There’s no telling how many people would have been killed in the initial barrage if we hadn’t cleared the crowds.” _ Annabeth continues.

Damn, okay. So, it’s possible that she was right earlier which sucks, “They might not see any value in what we have here but….do teams of five and clear the buildings. Start with the first ones to take hits and bring the mortals out through the lowest possible floors and the backs of buildings. Where possible then down to the subways.” It’s the best sort of cover available in NYC. While it is possible that the Chitauri see everything on Earth as junk that indiscriminate firing….that sounds more like a border raid. It happens when forces are testing for weaknesses in lands they’re considering invading.

Germanic tribes did it to the borders of the Roman Empire for a long while to test the defenses and weaken them to the point of being able to sack Rome directly. The Huns used similar tactics to pick away at the borders of surrounding territories, mostly China. It’s possible a lack of perceived value in Earth products could justify wanton destruction but what’s the point of invading through a bottleneck?(And why invade a worthless planet?) These guys clearly have spaceships and Earth has zero interplanetary defenses. They could have flown in and attacked multiple cities but they picked one singular building, in one city, of one country, on an entire planet.

It doesn’t make sense! No, nope.

Unless….

No.

Not now.

Later, after ET’s angry cousins are long gone.

_ “Whatever you say, Cas. But you owe me for the chariots.” _

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you want.” She can’t fight her on this one. It was a good call, “As long as it’s legal.”

_ “Stark senior too, they’re flanking him.” _ Huh, well she’s glad that her father has adequate help out there.

“How’s NYPD doing?”

_ “Confused,”  _ Annabeth says and that sounds about right,  _ “But mostly fine to accept help from people that know what they’re doing. It’ll be a problem later on.” _ Ah, Annabeth’s worrying about the wrong thing.

“Ah-ah, later problems are for later. Stay in the now. We’ve got enough going on. Where’s everyone? Is there an overwatch?”

_ “Roof, 42nd and Madison. Get there.” _

“Can do, sis.” She turns to the pilots, “My stop is 42nd and Madison. Is that on your route?” There’s even more confusion but they’ll understand what she means once they get there.

_ “Hurry up, Stark. I’m not saving any for you.”  _ Ah, Clarisse.

“I’ll see you on the ground, Clar.” When they finally get there(It was like a minute longer), she addresses the whole jet again, “This thing is slow. Remind me to make them faster with my dad later.” She needs to focus on what is instead of what’s not. “After you drop me off and after we win.”

Barton must know NYC really well or the navigation in the Quinjet is just that detailed because he flies her right to the roof of the building in question. It’s in a perfect location. For one Bryant Park and the library are right there so it’s a good place to put the mortals that are being run to safety. It’s also near but not too close to Stark Tower. He idles over the roof for her but there’s not much space to land given the demigods waiting and….she doesn’t know how they got a command tent up there but alright.

“Don’t bother landing,” They’re only like thirty feet up. She hits the button for the ramp, “I got this.”

“Cassandra,” Cas looks up at Romanoff at the sound of her name, “Good luck out there.”

That’s nice. It’s a bad time for pleasantries but still nice. Cas walks backwards down the ramp and decides to indulge her inner drama queen, “You wound me, Agent Romanoff,” She winks, “I don’t need luck.” And she back flips out of the Quinjet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So all of the pieces are place before the big fight that's going to be a fair amount different than in canon. You could say this is official shots fired at canon.
> 
> Also, English is weird. When I was a kid learning my weird English grammar rules the plural of roof was rooves and the plural of hoof was hooves. Somehow between the age of 10 and where I am now rooves stopped being word (?). Can anyone explain when that happened? Or was grade school me lied to and it was never a real thing?


	7. A Rather Ambitious Crossover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY MOLEY!!!!
> 
> We're at the battle.
> 
> I doubted that I would get this far honestly. Doesn't matter. We're here and I have the story outlined so I know I have until at least MCU 2015.
> 
> So, I read somewhere (this was uncorroborated) that the battle was fifteen minutes (?) which makes zero sense to me. Then I saw the deleted scenes (I think it was deleted I only saw the movie once and I never will again) for Endgame and Natasha says they fought for a few hours.
> 
> We're going with hours.

Cas is greeted warmly when she lands on the roof, “You didn’t tell us that they fly around and scream.” And Clarisse cuffs her on the back of the head.

“Well,” She looks out over the city that’s being shot up by aliens on space chariots, “I didn’t know they could do that. Honestly, part of me doubted there was actually any kind of alien army out there.” Even from where she’s standing Cas can see teams of archers on the nearby buildings bringing down the enemy with unerring accuracy, “What are you doing here? Figured you’d be in the thick of it.” Clar should be busy throwing cars and aliens with her siblings.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, “No point right now, since the Apollo cabin is so large they’re kind of dominating. Between them, the pegasi, and our chariots there’s not many on the ground yet.”

Huh, “I bet that hurt you to say.” Clarisse La Rue complimenting another cabin, it must be the apocalypse. Actually….there’s several buildings on fire, screaming, and aliens descending from the heavens so maybe it’s not that far off technically. It should be noted that not all archers are from the Apollo cabin, they’re just the best and are therefore in charge.

“Shut up, Owl Chaser.” There’s no real heat behind the words. It’s possible that she’s relieved that this doesn’t seem as horrible as it could be. As of now anyway, the portal only just opened.

“Okay, work time. Who’s doing what and where?” Cas can see Malcolm Pace at the tent surrounded by quite a few others making calls and giving directions.

“We had a few stowaways-”

“What?” Oh, Cas is going to give some harsh lessons the next time she visits camp.

“I already said shut up, Cas, they’re stuck helping with guarding the library which has been commandeered as a field hospital.” Even better, they can run supplies for anyone not combat inclined, “We’ve got most of the seventeen year old campers supporting the medics in there and the charmspeakers were spread around the teams to calm the masses down.” That is a good idea. If she remembers right there are ten children of Aphrodite in the correct age range with that ability so it won’t cover every team but it will help.

“Annabeth?” Cas takes a moment to feel concerned when she sees her family name explode off the side of the tower but Jarvis doesn’t send her any alerts so she returns to the present.

“It was Nico’s idea actually.” Ah, he’s here. That explains the intermittent skeletons, “If this is it we can just hold and fortify.”

“How’s their weaponry?” She can see strange energy blasts coming from the Chitauri as they fly past.

At this Clarisse actually starts laughing, “You won’t believe this but it bounces straight of celestial bronze.” No fucking way…. “It still hurts but it’s like getting kicked by a pegasus. Not that bad.”

“Did you hit your head?” Clar isn’t wearing a helmet, “Because that hurts. I’ve broken bones from that exact thing.”

Then Clarisse looks at her like she’s stupid, “That’s why you have that special armor now. For your fragile, brittle, little bones.” This giant is currently wearing armor based off of her father’s original design for her so that comment is not appreciated.

“Bitch,” Suddenly there’s an explosion that’s larger than the others. She can just barely make out the spiraling Quinjet going down before it spins out of sight….huh, “Jarvis, find out if they still have pulses.” They’re actually decent people so it would be tragic.

From the tent she’s just been given command of - if the multiple greetings of Strategos are serious - she hears someone mutter, “Wasn’t that the mortal heroes?” That person is ignored because while they are correct now is not the time for judging.

_ “Miss, I’m opening a channel with Mr. Stark and the other Avengers.” _ Oh, that name’s sticking then. At least they’re alive.

“Thanks, J, keep it muted for now but loop me in if I’m needed,” Her focus returns to the command tent, “Give me an update on the evacuation.”

Malcolm answers her, “Annabeth is down there with Percy and the others focusing on Park. When the portal opened, they all flooded south first like some sort of hive mind. It was like watching Myrmekes actually.” Alien bug army….seems legit, “A chunk of the Mexican consulate is gone but luckily none of the glass buildings have been targeted. Still, as long as they’re there we’ll push the civies west and east away from the chaos. The Space Invaders seem to prefer the wider avenues.” Convenient but she’s not complaining. Cas expected(if there was an army and there is) an organized assault, not a swarm of angry alien bees.

Look at Malcolm being all capable, maybe she can get him to finally take her job when this is all over. But for now it’s pretty easy for her to slip into the role of prioritizing intel and directing where the teams need to go. It’s almost like she’s done this before….and not even just against Kronos because this is similar to controlling a game of capture the flag. Unlike capture the flag she gets live updates on what the enemy is doing and there are multiple flags in the form of squishy mortals. Gotta love summer camp.

Then that godsdamn flying snake turtle has to slither its way out of the wormhole like an insult to the laws of gravity. Gods, the thing is like one of the half-organic half-machine creations of H. R. Geiger, just less awkward like Alien is….wow that’s a weird thought. Cas needs a vacation.

“Di immortales…”

“By the gods….

“Is that a drakon?”

All of these are valid reasonable reactions to the satan lizard that just flew out of the abyss, however, “That’s what I’m talking about!” Is not. Damn, that thing is a troop transport too.

“Dammit Clarisse, this is not the time for your showing off!”

“Shut up, Cas, or you’re not invited,” That shouldn’t have been as effective as it was…. “Get Sherman over here. I need my ride. Cas is my second.” Duh, of course she is. She wants to kill it.

“Malcolm, you’re in charge up here.” She pats his shoulder, “Make good choices, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and call me if something crazy happens.”

Sherman was either nearby or a summons from Clar is that powerful but it takes less than two minutes for that boy to arrive at which point Clar relieves him of his command with the new orders to help from the command tent. She merciless boots off one of her other siblings but keeps the archers so that Cas can get into position next to her.

“Javis, open the line for me buddy.”

“What are you doing?” Clar watches her from the corner of her eye as she expertly guides the chariot into the air.

“The old man and Co. have probably got eyes on the space whale,” It has flippers so it’s not a snake, “It’s better to know what they’re doing. Everyone else will know to back us up or keep out of the way since you’re flying.” If they’re smart.

“Are you suggesting that there’s something wrong with the way I fly?”

“No.” Yes.

_ “-seeing this?” _ So Rogers is alive. It’s always nice to have confirmation.

_ “Seeing. Still working on believing.”  _ This probably tops when Cas dropped Chiron on her father two years ago.

“Hey, old man, we need to get that thing to sea level.” Otherwise it’s going to take out a building when it lands.

Her father is unaffected by her surprise arrival,  _ “Noted. Anyone see Banner? He showed up yet?” _

She doesn’t bother replying to her father because they’ve just come up alongside the damn thing. From the empty divots on the surface she’s going to assume that it’s already dropped it’s complete payload of foot soldiers. Their archers go to fire but Cas halts them, “Not yet, don’t waste the arrows on that armor plating.” They’ll need a soft spot.

_ “Banner?”  _ Rogers questions and she kind of wonders why. They’ve already established that the Hulk can’t be killed by fall damage then again that whole discussion is a bit muddied on the edges for her so maybe it affected them worse.

_ “Just keep me posted.”  _ Is her father’s only response.

She has to ask though, “Normal Dr. Banner only or is the green variant an acceptable alternative?”

_ “Any Banners need to be reported to the nearest available adult.” _

Ha.

“I don’t know where to find either of those but I’ll keep my eyes open.” Really, she’s more staring at this thing and trying to figure out how to take it down, “Clar, any ideas?” Nothing is coming to mind for her right now other than they need to get it closer to the pavement before gravity takes over.

“I brought you for a reason.” That’s a fair point.

She shall spit out the first thing that popped into her head then, “Let's turn it’s eyes into pincushions.” They’re the only softspot she’s seen so far. This monstrosity is way too wide to be flying down these roads because it’s clipping building it passes as it undulates through the air. There’s chatter in her ear from the ground and an unfortunate update from Malcolm that Loki is in the air. Or they think it’s Loki...Cas didn’t exactly have the opportunity to take a picture but the humanoid male with a big shiny helm and a green cape is probably him. Cas calls back an order to approach with caution because he’s a slimy bastard.

_ “Belay that last.” _ What? Is he talking about the space bus or Loki?

It's probably about the new problem and not Loki, “You got a better idea for Satan’s pet?”

_ “As a matter of fact,”  _ Her father swings out in front of the Eldritch horror reject as he deploys flares in its face. That makes sense,  _ “I do.”  _ Probably more sensible than arrows actually. Cas has to cover her ears when it roars and she almost misses Clar’s very colorful swearing next to her. The archer behind Clarisse is even more eloquent with his swearing. Though his father is a poetry and archery god so it’s to be expected.

As it turns around one of the space turtle’s fins decapitates a building and sprays rubble everywhere, “Gods! Tell your dad to watch it!”

She doesn’t bother passing that on because there would be no point other than to guilt her father,  _ “Well, we got it’s attention.”  _ Her father makes the mistake of idling in the air for a moment giving Clarisse enough time to catch up to him.

“Hey Metal Head! A little warning next time.” Clar is possibly a little insulted that her father is trying to take her quarry. She’s always been possessive of her targets.

_ “Yeah, next time. Step two, keep its attention.” _ And now they’re fleeing from the angry Mecha-Lizard King.

For whatever reason, her archers are just gaping at the very large teeth in their pursuer. There’s no excuse because this isn’t a basilisk that can paralyze with a freaking look so Cas isn’t nice when she yells, “What in Hades are you waiting for? A green light? Start doing your jobs!” 

_ “We got Stark up top.”  _ Cas tunes back into the Avengers conversation when she hears her name but she’s not sure which he’s talking about,  _ “He’s gonna need us to….”  _ To what? She’s about to ask what he could possibly need while they’re in a high speed chase with demonic Shamu when he continues,  _ “Stark, we got him.” _ Who? Oh….Cas looks over he shoulder at their not-friend behind them….this could work.

_ “Banner?” _

“Get ready to bank right then put us as close to the ground as you can.” This should be fun assuming that the ‘Other Guy’ shows.

_ “Like you said.” _

_ “Then tell him to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.”  _ There’s so many things that Cas would like to say about this. About rounding the corner to see the Avengers spread out in the middle of the road while pegasi and Greek chariots compete for space with the Chitauri above them. About being in a chariot herself next to one of her oldest and most trusted friends while they fight in this pointless battle that Loki is never going to win. She doesn’t say anything though because she’s too busy shutting her eyes against the debris sprayed as the nightmare Bionicle clips the skyscraper behind them. 

_ “I don’t see how that’s a party…” _

Well, “Agent Romanoff, you’ve led a boring life.” Maybe she does have time to talk because this is a wild ride that a solid part of her is enjoying. She doesn’t like that her home has been invaded and thousands of people have been put in danger but this bit is enjoyable. They’re flying so close to the ground now the monster’s belly is scraping and crushing the cars behind them. Gods, the smell….Oily and rotted almost.

“Whoa!” Clarisse jerks them sharply to the left while Cas’s back is turned and she grabs the archer directly next to her to balance both of them out, “ _ That’s _ the Hulk?”

Yes, yes it is.

That’s eight feet of green and angry. And Cas is really glad that he’s on their side.

The Hulk doesn’t look harried or wrathful as he walks on up to the Space Snake (It moves like a snake….Cas needs to settle on a name rather than waste brain power trying to find the right one.) and slams his massive fist into its face. The whole creature crumples under the force forcing its body upwards because it has nowhere else to go. The tension forces the armor (scales/creepy body modifications) to buckle and fly off.

Her father is quick to capitalize on the chink,  _ “Hold on!” _ Shit. Her father fires a small missile from his arm and she knows how those work.

“Brace!” Thankfully, they’re very close to the ground at this point and Clar lets them drop in favor of securing herself and her archer while Cas does the same. It’s visceral and gory and blessedly none of that putrid Space Eel lands on her or the people in the chariot with her.

Cas hops out followed by Clarisse as they approach the shocked Avengers. There’s some hesitation as Hulk lets out an ear piercing roar. Sadly, it’s a bit of a premature roar of triumph because the portal’s still open. In fact, Cas doesn’t even get to greet this impromptu team and plan to tackle the energy shield issue.

“Guys…” She sees Romanoff looking at the sky in alarm and she doesn’t want to look per say but object permanence is a thing so she does. And immediately regrets it because the thing that Hulk just took out has relatives that have just decided to join the battle. 

“Clar…”

“Yeah?”

“Go take command of the other chariots and get those things down to Earth. The pegasi can focus on the small-fry.”

“With what?” You’d think that Clarisse would sound angry about being assigned Drakon 2.0 (no poison spray but these do actually fly so that bites) duty but she’s genuinely wondering how she’s supposed to do this in a very Clar way.

An excellent question, “Attention grabbing, Top Gun flight skills, and Greek fire to the mouths.” She’s not going to assume that they can burn through them from the outside because the things can survive the vacuum of space so obviously they’re at least radiation shielded...who knows what else it can take? Also, Greek fire should not be thrown around liberally.

“Fun,” She jogs off and starts barking at the startled archers but Cas returns focus to the Avengers. Why is she electing to remain here? Simple, the demigods already have their roles and know what to do while the Avengers have just arrived. Cas needs to prevent clashing and allow for coordination until someone figures out how to shut the portal down.

“-priority is containment.”

“Eh,” Cas makes her presence more apparent, “You could help but we’ve got it covered. Catching Loki would be a good goal,” It’s at this point that she acknowledges Thor, “Nice to see you breathing Thunderer but your brother is a malaka.” She kind of wants to kick Loki in the crotch.

“How long can we expect the demigods to hold the perimeter?” It’s a good question so Cas doesn’t get insulted when the Captain asks it.

“As long as we need to but dad,” She turns to her father in the Mark VII which deployed perfectly (internal girly shriek), “You’d be a more than helpful addition to that.” He’s incredibly agile in the air and faster than a pegasi….plus missiles.

“Right, Barton!” Rogers picks up next, “I want you on that building. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays.” There are demigods on that roof.

It is a good vantage point though so they can share, “Play nice with the sunny kids.” It’s going to be weird because he’s Shield but if anything they’ll try to get a contest going like Legolas and Gimli. Or the demigods will, Cas doesn’t know anything about Barton’s approach to battles.

“I’m sure we’ll get along great,” Barton turns to her father, “Can you give me a lift?”

_ “Why not,” _ Like he’d say no,  _ “Better clench up, Legolas.” _ And it’s moments like this where Cas is slightly frightened by the similarities between her and her father’s thought patterns. Regardless, he grabs Barton and flies off without looking back. She’s busy staring at the portal so nothing gets said between them.

It’s a problem. It’s not huge, relatively speaking. Again, the Chitauri could have invaded from space and covered the whole sky, like a fleet or something, but that portal is still allowing a whole lot of enemies. Demigods are good and they can go for a while. However, do they need to?

“Hey Thor,” He looks at her, “Any chance you can help our cavalry thin the herd without zapping them?”

He spins his hammer (it has a name...she thinks...but she’s Greek not Norse so...she doesn’t care), “Aye, it will be an honor to fight alongside the forces of Olympus.” And then he rockets off using said hammer….she has many questions about how that works.

Another time.

There’s a lot that she and the Asgardian need to talk about.

The Captain turns and says, “Hulk,” There’s a snarl from the Big Guy, “Smash.” And then he grins….that bastard. He’s totally cognizant.

“But not the demigods, please.” She yells after the terrifyingly powerful giant as he leaps away. Should be fine, “And then there were three.” It’s not her best line but Cas is a bit distracted by the spontaneous weather event on the Chrysler Building….hopefully that didn’t hit any of her people. He did explode several of the troop carrying things so that’s awesome.

“Cassandra?” That’s new coming from Rogers, Cas turns to the Captain, “You're with us?”

“Can’t leave the senior citizen without a protection detail,” The look she’s getting from both of them tells her that her humor is unappreciated at the moment, “Loki wasn’t expecting this kind of resistance but the Avengers were his original targets. You’re a symbol Cap, he’ll be looking to take you out. Dad too, but he’s a harder target, too mobile to pin down especially with my guys at his back.”

That makes him thoughtful, “But you’re not.”

“Exactly,” Her smile is likely a bit on the wicked side, “I want his eyes on us so my people can play goalkeeper and continue to sneak the mortals out without too much focus falling on them. In my experience the big bad always comes around to the main team.” It’ll be like when Aragorn marched the army of Gondor on the Black Gates to hold Sauron’s gaze….And that’s enough Tolkien for now. She shouldn’t have binged the extended cut this past weekend, “Don’t tell my dad that I’m using myself as bait.” He’ll give her an earful for it later if he finds out….or worse, he’ll tell the others. Having Pepper come after her is scary yet it comes out of place of care. But Rhodey? He’ll hit her with the rational angle of ‘why didn’t she include more demigods?’ The answer is that they’re busy. Cas literally just heard Percy saying that he called Mrs. O’Leary in on E 44th St to help Nico out. 

Also, there’s no reason to call anyone back to where she is now when they put in all of that effort to empty it earlier. Not when she has so much room to move and move she does.

She’s not exactly wrong about them being targets either.

For whatever reason the Chitauri are favoring Park Ave southbound exactly where they’ve planted themselves. The steady stream of Chitauri that manage to make it to the ground are converging on them. At first, Cas did have concerns about Romanoff keeping up but that woman really can hold her own. Sure, she’s not at the level of kicking cars to pancake the enemy against the road barriers but those built in tasers are effective.

As far as raw strength is concerned for the Chitauri, they fall below the average demigod but judging from the damage to the surrounding structures and vehicles those guns are packing some firepower. They’re slow as hell and nowhere near as agile as Cas though so she doesn’t test her armor against their weaponry.

Romanoff and Cas have a bit of a ‘respect has been established’ moment when Cas kicks one onto a car for Romanoff to electrocute in the neck. Their special moment doesn’t last because they end up spread out along the street and Cas is beginning to doubt her plan of drawing Loki to them. It’s possible his grudge would lead him to target Thor but if he really does want to win then he’s going to need to take them out.

Symbolically anyway, her father had a fun little psychological attack before the fighting started where he established them as the larger threat overall...but if Loki doesn’t take the bait for the metaphorical win….Cas doesn’t know how to shut the portal down. Granted she hasn’t been up there but she’s already committed herself here….It would be easier to catch Loki and make him do it.

She looks up at Stark Tower. It’s not practical for her to make a run for it because Jarvis did shut down the Arc Reactor. There’s no power to the elevators or the security doors. She could call for a ride but the pegasi and the chariots are all performing vital functions now that the battle has begun in earnest.

Also, leaving Romanoff and Rogers high and dry after saying that she would fight with them is kind of a dick move. She just feels like she’s supposed to be right here….for something.

After….Cas has no idea how much time has passed. So after however much time she’s been fighting goes by that Loki chooses not to grace them with his benevolent presence there’s a small slump in the amount of Chitauri coming for them.

Probably has something to do with the squad of pegasi that just flew overhead and the riders that just pin-cushioned a group of Chitauri before drawing the rest of them off.

She’ll happily take the breather though and regroups to where she sees Romanoff standing with a Chitauri weapon….that’s cool. That’s pretty awesome actually and Cas mentally upgrades her to Natasha out of respect. The woman in question looks exhausted, leaning against the hood of a car with a dead Chitauri at her feet.

“You good there, Superspy?” Cas may have mentally upgraded her but she’s still Cas.

The only response she receives to that is a nod, “Clint said something about a dragon on 42nd street.” She missed that...both the dragon and the call out.

“When was that?” How’d she miss a dragon?

“You were preoccupied with a few aliens at the time.” Fair enough, there’s a lot going on for even Cas to keep up with all of the ‘radio’ chatter and pay attention to what’s trying to kill her.

There’s a few things the dragon could be, “Was it bronze?” If Leo’s here and he didn’t check in with her she’s going to feel a little insulted because everyone else has at least given her a shout out by now. Romanoff answers her with a raised brow. Wow, she’s getting good at that, “Yeah, that’s one of mine. Likely being ridden by a scrawny kid named Leo.” Leo’s maintained his boniness but that brat passed her in height sometime during the winter.

She’s officially the shortest Hero of Olympus. Fine, it’s okay. She’s got other better accolades. 

“I’m going to need to pick up a book tomorrow.”

That catches Cas’s attention, “I mean you could but a lot of that stuff is misleading.”

“What else is new?” Romanoff probably meant this as a rhetorical question but between the adrenaline and everything else going on right now the brain to mouth filter died a quiet insignificant death.

“Weather update, there’s a large chance of aliens.” She would have continued but Captain America decided to join their break time by startling a very stressed out assassin. He was nearly shot with a Chitauri rifle which realistically due to demigod luck probably would have hit her when it ricocheted off of his shield. Thankfully, he was not shot by Natasha when he surprised her.

Natasha lowers her new toy and sighs while Cas can only shrug at the surprised Captain still shielding himself. People get jumpy during battles. It's nothing new, “You know, none of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don’t close that portal.”

Yeah, Cas has to acknowledge that her plan is taking too long, “Loki’s a no show which is weird for a guy who made this all about the spotlight.” He should be here.

“What do you want to do?” Rogers says, “Our biggest guns couldn’t touch it.” 

“Well,” Natasha says, “Maybe it’s not about guns.”

“It rarely ever is,” She looks up at the chaos that’s flying overhead though and really….she’s not interested in that, “The portal device is untouchable at the moment and Loki’s not around to ask about it,”  _ Think! _ ….but Loki didn’t build it, did he? “Assuming Loki’s not one for tying up loose ends,” That would be sad because Dr. Selvig is a brilliant man, “Dr. Selvig built the device.” Her father spoke to him by the device not to long ago so he could still be there.

“Uh-huh,” Natasha is next to her also planning a route to the tower, “but….” A rider on a pegasus hits a Chitauri rider and it spins off into a building, “Getting there…”

“I could call a ride?” All of the chariots are in use but someone would probably get her up there if it’s to close the portal. Natasha’s mortal so they won’t expect her to run there.

“No thanks,” Natasha starts walking off and turns to face Rogers, “I’ve got my own. Give me a boost?”

Rogers, who has followed this whole thing says, “Are you sure about this? There’s a hell of a firefight up there.” That’s one way to put it but if Natasha wants to fling herself up there and slip in all spy like Cas won’t stop her. She does discreetly contact Clarisse and Malcolm to tell them that the redhead clinging to the back of a Chitauri needs a pass.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be fun.” Okay, wow. 

Respect.

“Natasha, you sure you’re a mortal?” If she’s always like that then she’d fit right in.

“Wouldn’t know.” She watches the skies for a moment before running for Cap’s shield and vaulting into the air onto a passing Chitauri.

Good luck to Natasha Romanoff because that was pretty epic, “Well Cap, you ready to keep going?” They’re fired on from the side which both answers the question and forces Cas to take cover behind a burning car. There’s not much talking after that because they’re back to fighting for the fate of the world and all that.

It’s not hard to fight next to Captain America which is a bit surprising but not at the same time. The man is pretty good at pacing himself during a drawn out battle, likely picked up during the war.

Does she hesitate when her father does a fly by taking out multiple at once before landing and shouting at her to jump? No, she does not. And by the gods is she glad that she did. The repulsor blasts he fires from his hands are reflected off of Roger’s shield in a deadly laser that takes out seven Chitauri.

“Thank you!” She shouts as he flies off because he did them a solid. There were quite a few of them.

There comes a point where Cas decides that this battle is really tedious. When Malcolm compared these things to tiny myrmekes he wasn’t wrong. They attack in highly predictable patterns and they move with a hive mind mentality so it’s like repeating the exact same fight every couple of minutes between the waves of opponents. Not that she wants them to be tough fights but Cas isn’t losing or gaining ground here….it’s just endless.

With any luck Natasha will find a way to close the portal soon.

Some time ago Cas started hearing gunfire and reports started coming in of military vehicles entering the battlefield as well. Cas put Piper on it. Yes, it takes her away from mortal removal teams but a few of her siblings can probably talk a few officers around so that they know who to shoot at. Also, if they brought medics then those guys need to get to the library because Cas is getting scattered reports of injuries more frequently than she would like.

Jarvis is filtering the information for her but there is quite a lot of data that’s worthy of the tag ‘important’ and he also doesn’t know what she needs to know and what she doesn’t need to know. Hopefully, this is a one time situation so he’s not going to need to learn how to filter this kind of stuff for her in the future like an AI  _ aide de campe _ .

The tedium is broken by the sight of Rogers being pinned to the ground by a Chitauri (Chitaurus for singular (?)...that’s dumb it’s not a Latin word.) that tries to execute him Robespierre style. She’s quick to intervene and kick him off before gifting him with a spear to the chest.

Roger’s is dragging himself off the pavement so she offers him her hand and pulls him the rest of the way up, “Not getting tired, are you? I thought you had all those backlogged sleep hours.”

“Me? Nah,” He scoops his Shield up and gets ready to go again, “I can do this all day.”

She would’ve given a line challenging him to do just that but Jarvis pushes a communication from Barton to the foreground,  _ “Hey ground team, the bank on 42nd past Madison got taken by the Chitauri,” _ Shit,  _ “They’ve cornered some stray civilians in there.” _ Her command center is right there...how’d they slip though? Then again. This is a new type of fighting because they’ve never dealt with this kind of Ender’s Game multi-tier battle before.

She and the Captain exchange a look before nodding at each other, “We’re on it.” Rogers answers for both of them. This should be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made the decision to put Cas on the ground with Rogers for a reason. I initially had this whole thought to have her clearing buildings and busting down doors the whole time but then I changed my mind. One because it's repetitive and uninteresting and two that would involve creating a whole lot of fake names.
> 
> Instead assume the search and rescue under live fire is occurring around Cas while she essentially puts up a flare and says 'Hi Loki! Here we are! You should totally try and kill us!' Which is both a perfectly demigod thing to do and an Avengers thing to do in my humble opinion.
> 
> I hope you guys like it!!!!


	8. There's a Lot of Missed Independence Day Jokes Here

So Cas is faster than Captain America.

It needs to be noted down. Cas runs faster than him. Hands down. End of Story.

She had the great joy of holding back while running West on 42nd street to get where they needed to go. There are demigods moving around other buildings but they’ve mostly started to push outwards at this point focusing on getting as many people as possible rather than every single individual. It’s a dark truth but a necessary one. Innocent people have died today even if they’ve done everything they could think of in the time that they had to save them. Hence why she’s focused on the fact that she’s faster than the supersoldier.

When they arrive at the bank, the front door is immediately ignored as a means of entry. Nah, the blasted out second story window is far more inviting. At least, that’s what she tells herself as she warps up followed closely by Captain America.

It’s a scary scene in there. The mortals are packed like sardines on the first floor while the second level-where they’ve just arrived unannounced-is lined with Chitauri aiming down from the balcony. The worst part though? One is holding a beeping device in his hand. Now, Cas is no expert on alien weaponry but a bomb is a bomb.

So her yelling and diving is justified, “Cap!” She could warp over there and kill him but the grenade (?) is still primed and she’s not looking to die.

“I see it!” Rogers proves to have an excellent reaction time though and hits the Chitauri in the face with his Shield before joining her behind an overturned desk and kicking it. The desk catches the first blasts from the marginally self-aware Chitauri allowing Cas and Rogers to advance and try to clear the floor. Meanwhile, the ‘probably a grenade but she can’t say for certain yet’ beeps ever quicker and the mortals have decided to stand and gape while she kicks a very dead alien corpse into the middle of the bank floor.

They still don’t move...., the Captain fixes the problem, “Everyone, clear out!” It just took an order from a military man in stars and stripes to get the herd moving. There’s only a few Chitauri left and one is frantically scrambling to pick up what is definitely a space grenade while she snaps the neck of his buddy.

“Cap! We gotta go! Stop playing around!” He’s in a bit of a bind/headlock right now but she’s not in a position to help seeing as another is trying to shoot her and Cas has been jumping and warping around just a little bit too much in the last couple of hours. It would be bad form to pass out in the middle of a fight.

And then the unfortunate happens, the scrambling alien gets his hands(?) on the space grenade. It’s in this moment that Rogers gets upgraded to Steve and whatever other nicknames she decides to throw at him later. In the slowdown caused by her speed thinking, she makes eye contact with Steve who’s tightened his grip on his vibranium shield and she realizes what he’s going to do. Technically speaking, it’s not the smartest decision but in studies done on Earth vibranium has proven effective at absorbing and easily withstanding all sorts of explosions and impacts.

The good Captain plans to catch the blast of a space grenade with unknown capabilities with his shield.

Well….

It’s not like they have a better idea.

Cas dives out the window and Captain America jumps into the path of the device which does in fact prove to be a grenade, a really strong and focused one too. Gods, the Chitauri were going to throw that into a crowd of mortals.

She lands a little roughly and rolls out of it fine. Her armor protects her from any minor scrapes or injuries but Steve Rogers belly flops onto the roof of a car.

“Hey there Stevie Wonder, you still breathing?”

There’s a small groan as he pushes himself up, “Who?” He’s fine.

Uh…. “Music icon, sorry, he’s also blind not that you are. But it’s pretty miraculous that he does what he does.” She tired and rambly okay…, “Sort of like you being alive after that stunt.” By now he’s pulled himself off of the very crumpled car…(Will this count as an Act of God in an insurance payout?) and stands slowly. He doesn’t have any discernible injuries from what Cas can see but the more important thing is that the bank doors are open and there’s emergency services and demigods directing the crowds towards the library.

“Let me get used to space armies first and Olympians.” Aw...this poor man looks as tired as she feels.

“That’s fair, you’ve been hit in the face by the future with all the subtlety of a Mack truck.” She takes the space next to Steve against the car he just TKOed. It’s not an exaggeration to say that she’s flagging now not that she hasn’t pressed on through worse but they have time to take a minute.

“I think you mean all the subtlety of a Stark.” Oh gods, this man does have humor. Alright, he’s not that bad and his earlier sarcasm wasn’t a one off.

She feigns great insult, “Excuse you, Mr. America, I am a graceful and light footed presence.” He coughs out a laugh and winces suggesting that the grenade was a little much for his vibranium Frisbee. They can get him checked out later. 

“Hate to see what ‘in your face’ looks like in the future,” Well, it looks like her father technically….or Clarisse….Leo too now that she’s thinking about it.

She was pretty content to keep chilling there against the car for another minute or two when she hears a wild Leo in her ear. It’s a speak of the devil moment,  _ “Hey general, your dad just got himself eaten and then blew up the ‘not-dragon.’” _

Of course he did, “Is the old man moving?” She keeps a tight lid on any potential concern or panic.

_ “Oh yeah, I’m with him. Festus is covering us while I clean up his back. Space guts are not good for aerodynamics,”  _ She’d imagine that they aren’t,  _ “He’s also mad that I told on him but I’m not about to try and keep a secret from you. I like living.” _

She waves off Steve who has likely realized who she’s talking about, “Thanks for watching out for him, Zuko.” Her father can take care of himself but allies and friends are nice.

_ “Anytime, Strategos.” _ She’s about to suggest that the break is over and that Cas and Steve need to get back out there but Leo has one more thing to say before signing off,  _ “You should also know that everyone is calling you Stategos to the mortal authorities.” _ What?

Why would they do that to her?

You know what that’s a later problem too, “Thanks, Leo.” She sighs, “Time to go, Cap, break’s over.”

Time for them to get back to the tedium because battlefields are just so boring. If you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.

False, but she’s still about done with this party.

Thor joins them on the ground which is a plus. Having Thor fighting next to her is simultaneously like having a more violent Jason and a more controlled Jason. More violent because he just flipped a car at a Chitauri that had the audacity to shoot as his Royal Highness’s gorgeous flowing locks. More controlled because the lightning Thor has command of way more focused and reliable than what Jason has on hand (it’s a running joke that Jason has a weekly allowance of lightning bolts from his father).

There’s one singular, heart stopping moment when Steve gets hit and goes down hard. He stays there. It’s not how she wants to handle it but Thor is busy so Cas warps between the four Chitauri advancing over a beaten up sedan.

It’s not her best decision but these guys had to go.

As soon as she relieves the last Chitauri of the spear in his throat she falls on her ass next to it’s stupid alien corpse. She looks up to see Steve being helped to his feet by Thor.

“Cassandra, are you well?” Aww, thanks Thor. She’ll get up as soon as everything stops spinning because she’s officially crossed the threshold into overdoing it.

“All good here,” Mostly, “It’s been a while since I was in a battle this long.” The Battle of Manhattan was broken up into multiple encounters spread over three days with the longest continuous fight being 6(?) hours...probably. A lot of that time is a blur and with Kronos well, keeping track was tricky. She pulls herself up once she’s sure she’s not going to fall back down.

Cas nearly does go back down when Jarvis forwards amazing news to her ear,  _ “I can close it.”  _ Natasha’s voice comes through like a godsdamned gift,  _ “Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down.” _

Duh, “Don’t wait for permission! Bounce the party crashers!” Please...she wants to go home. To bed for like….ever. Steve agrees by the shout of ‘Do it.’

She’s so sure that the battle is about to be over but then,  _ “No, wait.” _ Her father says with incredibly poor timing. Cas waits for him to elaborate because there’s got to be a very good reason for this.

“Stark, these things are still coming.” And wow she agrees with Captain America over her own father. 

Crazy days.

Some might say end of times.

_ “I got a nuke coming in.” _ What? From where? Who’s nuking Manhattan?  _ “It’s gonna blow in less than a minute.” _

What?

“Dad?” Code: What are you doing? Please, explain for I am very confused.

He has a nuke that needs to go somewhere that it cannot destroy the island and everyone on it including the surrounding area and all of her people currently on it.

_ “It’s alright,”  _ It really isn’t,  _ “I know just where to put it.” _ The obvious answer is the portal….but….

She’s already trying to come up with a way for her father to get it up there and release it but….but if it explodes too close to the portal entrance then the city could get irradiated anyway. Defeats the purpose….If he releases it too soon and it clips one of the Chitauri still pouring out then the same problem.

Meaning he’s going in with it.

“Stark, you know that’s a one way trip.” No.

“Shut the fuck up, Rogers!” This isn’t happening, “Dad, it’s just timing. You can release it, right?”

_ “You know we can’t risk that.” _ She does know that. Her eyes are glued to the sky looking for her father who should be overhead with a fucking nuke at any second.

How did this happen?

Who authorized a nuclear strike on Manhattan? While they’re on it?

She’s going to ruin them. Cas and her father; because he’s going to be fine.

He has to be.

Jarvis speaks in her ear next,  _ “Miss, I’ve opened a separate channel for you at Mr. Stark’s request.” _

“Dad?” She still hasn’t spotted him but she doesn’t like this, “What are you doing?” She’s aware of Thor and Steve nearby her but they don’t matter. They’ll cover her if need be but she doesn’t care about them right now.

_ “Hey kiddo, look Pepper isn’t answering.” _ She doesn’t like that tone.

“That’s fine. You can talk to her later.” At home. Where they will be going after this.

_ “I’m going to need you to give her a message for me….”  _ How dare he! No, he doesn’t get to do this. Why is he always trying to clock out on her?

“Tell her yourself, you lazy malaka!” The scream of the repulsors is deafening to her even with all of the other activity going and she sees Iron Man make his approach to the portal and clip the top of Stark Tower on the way up.

To think she was just tired when now she feels like she could sprint up Stark Tower from the outside.

_ “Cassandra!” _ No, no, no. He can’t do this!  _ “I love you, kid. I love you bo-”  _ No....it's like watching Leo with Gaea all over again.

“Dad! Dad!” Oh gods, oh no, no…. “Jarvis! Find him! Divert power from somewhere!” The Arc Reactor’s down and strictly speaking Jarvis isn’t supposed to touch the power grid because people would call foul on SkyNet but this is important.

_ “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that Mr. Stark is out of range.” _ No, fuck that. There’s no such fucking thing as out of range.

She can-

They can try-

They need-

“Lady Cassandra, your father is a courageous man.” Yeah, she knows that Thor but she doesn’t care right now. Around them the remaining Chitauri collapse like puppets with their strings cut and there’s a vague thought of ‘hive mind’ but she doesn’t care. Platitudes like that are for funerals and there isn’t going to be one because her father is coming back.

Deafening cheers breakout around the city that she can make out from here. Only overjoyed demigods can sound like that but she doesn’t join in or even acknowledge that she can hear them.

She’s transfixed on the portal right now because he can still make it back. It’s still open and he can still make it back. The nuke must have hit something important up there so they can leave the portal open so that her father can make it back….but the nuclear fallout…

NO!

“Close it,” What? 

Cas rounds on Rogers for daring to say something like that in front of her, “Don’t you dare, Romanoff.” She’s exhausted but her eyes are challenging.

“Cassandra, the blast is coming.” She doesn’t care, “Agent Romanoff, close the portal.”

It’s the right thing to do. She knows that her father would probably want that but...no…

The portal collapses on itself and folds in fluidly like a sludge or an oil. 

But there he is slipping out just as the breach seals behind him. “Son of a gun.” She completely agrees Steve and she may consider apologizing later for losing her temper.

Iron Man is falling….actually falling…, “Jarvis, talk to me, buddy.” 

_ “Systems are down. I am unable to reach Mr. Stark at this time.” _ What? That hope that just exploded starts dimming as her father hurtles towards the Earth.

“He’s not slowing down!” Yes, she’s noticed Thor.

“The suit’s down. Can you catch him?” Thor’s done some awesome shit so it should be easy but before he can take off the Hulk snatches her father out of the air and nearly cradles him during the impact with the street.

Park Ave is going to need so much work after this….not that it didn’t before.

She’s off like a bullet from a rail gun and this time she doesn’t slow down for Captain America. He’ll get there when he gets there.

“Dad!” The Hulk is standing over her father and she doesn’t hesitate to approach. He’s face down because the ‘Big Guy’ isn’t perfect but her father is here so she can work with this. It’s easy enough to roll the suit over but her breath catches in her throat when she sees the Arc Reactor is dark. “Jarvis, where’s the emergency release on the Mark VII?” She didn’t work on that part of this model but from now on she’s going to know all of the suits from the inside out just like her father did. DOES! Like her father does.

_ “The release mechanics seized during the fighting.” _ Shit. That’s something they would have caught during normal impact testing but they didn’t have time for because of stupid Loki.

“Is he breathing?” Roger’s comes sliding in next to her.

“I don’t know. The suit’s offline but if I can’t get the Arc Reactor going he’s dead anyway.” This is insane. How is it this? A power outage? That takes her father out? How did that even happen? Maybe the EMP from the nuke....Thor reaches around her and rips the face plate from the suit but her father’s face is unresponsive. His neck is covered so she can’t check his pulse, “Dad? Come on!” She’ll shake the damn thing until he wakes up if she has to.

Cas hears something heavy land behind her and she reaches for her spear on instinct, “Easy Cassandra, it’s one of your shield brothers.” She doesn’t know what that is but whatever. Wait? Thor? What if he-

She’s saved from the idiotic thought of using Thor as a defibrillator when the Hulk roars.

Gods, that hurts up close but she’ll take it when her father jerks awake and the Arc Reactor reengages, “What the hell? What just happened? Please, tell me nobody kissed me.”

“Thank the gods…” He gets maybe two seconds respite from her, “What the hell? What the hell kind of a goodbye was that? Malaka.” She’s freaking out and there he is complaining about resuscitation methods.

“Can you give me more than a second before you lay into me for saving everyone’s lives?” Nope, “And almost dying while doing it?”

Hades no.

“Would you?” There’s an incoherent scream just aching to crawl out of her throat right now.

She decides to leave that sort of thing to the Hulk. Hers probably isn’t as effective anyway.

“We won.” Rogers sounds surprised. He shouldn’t be, they had very strong defense going on and now...she falls back on her hands. Now's the very unfun part called ‘cleanup.’

She would have answered but an unholy sound comes from her stomach. Yeah, she’s missed a few meals at this point in time. Her father talks instead, clearly rattled by what’s just happened to him. She gets it, “Alright, yay! Hurray, good job, guys!” He sounds exhausted and she feels bad for yelling now, “Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just take a day,” She also gets why Pepper freaks out about this. It’s way less stressful when it’s her or one of her friends doing to the stupid hero stunt, “Have you ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from here.” That’s Middle-Eastern food right? “I don’t know what it is but I want to try it.”

She laughs in relief, “Yeah, sounds good old man,” She nudges the suit with her foot, “Let’s get you out of this thing first.” Mark VII’s first flight is going to be it’s last for a while. It’s a mess.

While he sounds loath to ruin the moment, “We’re not finished yet.” Thor ruins the moment.

“And then shawarma after.” His statement is punctuated by her stomach growling again and yeah, she needs to eat. It’s been a while at this point. Dried fruit on the helicarrier was only going to last so long.

“Hey!” That’s right there’s a demigod behind her.

Cas turns to look at whoever it was that landed and sees a black pegasus. Oh, “Hi Percy.”

“Hey Cassie, is your dad okay?”

She’s not sure yet, “Are you alright?” Obviously he’s not perfect but she’ll settle for a passable.

He’s still breathing heavily and his eyes are sort of darting around like he’s expecting another attack. Adrenaline’s a bitch especially when your brain’s fast enough to keep up with the extra input. He doesn’t complain though, “Living.” She’ll take it.

He wasn’t very loud though so she turns to Percy who is still in his seat on Blackjack, “Yeah, he’ll make it,” On to the next steps, “How are we looking?”

He rubs the back of his dirty head, “Looking good. Everyone’s accounted for so far.” That is good news, “Some breaks from falls but that was an air battle….that’s new. The army-human army not the space one- tried to muscle in on the library but you know New York.”

Oh, no kidding. They’ve been claimed by the city, “I love New Yorkers.” They’re nuts. But awesome.

“Also, someone started telling the mortals that you’re in charge.” Why? “Thought you should know.” He thought she should know? This brat is clearly enjoying this. For him, it must be a moment of ‘for once it’s not me’ but that doesn’t mean she wants it to be her.

“Why can’t it be the Cabin Heads? They’re here, right?” She’s not quite whining because she has an audience but it’s a near thing.

“Uh-huh,” He nods but Cas feels uneasy about something, “Look, go finish you’re-is this a quest?-doesn’t matter. Finish up your thing. Go eat. We’ll take care of it. Just meet us at the library later.” Percy is too….okay with this.

Whatever. Another problem for Future Cas and she’s just racking them up today.

~~~

They find Loki crawling on his belly and dragging himself out of a crater in the new floors….she picked the color too. Cas looks between Loki, bruised and battered worse than Cas is right now, and the Hulk. She makes the executive decision to never try and fight the Hulk ever. Some other brave soul can have that honor.

He rolls over to look at them and Barton is just itching for an excuse to put an arrow in him. It’s unlikely that the one arrow would do much given the force the Hulk had to use to do just this to him but whatever makes him feel better. That guy’s had a rough few days.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take that drink now.” Cute, now she wants Barton to shoot him.

He’s quickly processed and placed in a temporary holding along with his spear and the Tesseract (they definitely are not the same) until they can figure out what to do with them.

~~~

“I can’t believe they opened their kitchens.” Cas doesn’t even dignify Barton’s statement with a response. This is her father they’re talking about and they just saved the city. What Cas is surprised about is how this little shop went unnoticed during evacuations. The Closed sign is flipped so maybe that has something to do with it.

So yeah, she’s just going to ignore him and enjoy her lamb.

It tastes like cheap, greasy food.

It tastes like godsdamned victory.

She has things to do on her phone anyway. This her third one. The previous model met a hellish death when she fell twenty eight feet and landed on it and the original one found out the hard way what waterproof means. (Thanks Percy….) Is it gross that she’s stuffing her face while telling Katie Gardner that this is not a good time to try and expand Bryant Park? Maybe, but no one can read what she’s typing anyway because it’s in Ancient Greek.

“Cassie?” Plot twist, while her father - that’s just had a brush with Thanatos - cannot read Ancient Greek he’s still aware enough to notice she’s using her other alphabet.

“Yes dad,” She says after swallowing a fry.

“I can’t believe it’s me saying this but you should probably put the phone down for a while.” This man is practically falling asleep where he’s sitting and really so is Cas but she’s fueling up to get back out there. Until she can, Cas needs to stay on top of everything that the others are doing from her phone.

However, her dad almost died so she’ll put it down for now after ensuring that Katie isn’t about to channel her inner Pamela Isley, “‘Kay.” She can pop some more fries rather than get into a fight with her dad. It’s actually pretty funny because Steve is thoroughly knocked out right now, “FYI, there’s a bunch of teens-older ones not fourteen-that are going to arrive soon to help with search and rescue. Just forewarning.” Also, the Cabin Heads are being quiet and Cas is worried.

“Yay, more demigods,” He leans back and gets a thousand yard stare going at the ceiling. Cas kind of wonders what he saw out there but she knows better than to ask. No one ever asked about what she saw in Tartarus outside of what she, Percy, and Annabeth chose to reveal.

Natasha is awake enough to ask, “How many are there? While I was in the air I couldn’t get a good grasp on the numbers but there were people on almost every building around the tower.”

And Cas is awake enough to consider answering honestly or evasively, “We are Legion, Agent Romanoff.” She gives a dramatic pause, “Nah, there’s around fifty two hundred identified in New York but only a few hundred are old enough to vote. They’re here today.” As previously stated, Cas cannot speak for the Romans.

“See, what I don’t get,” Cas could make a joke about Barton not getting anything but they just met today so she refrains, “Is that if Olympus is real does that mean all of it is? I mean Thor is right there.”

That’s a very broad question. Does he mean other gods like Kali, Izanagi, and Sekhmet?

She’s saved by Thor, “According to my father you humans frequently lose track of your histories. There is likely a grain of truth in every tale.”

It’s a reasonable statement and she shall provide an example, “Yeah, like Persephone totally wasn’t kidnapped. The version where she ran away from her mother to the Underworld is more accurate.” Demeter can be very overbearing.

“Uh…” Barton is trying so hard here, “The...gods aren’t the problem. I saw a kid on a pegasus today. That’s normal?” Well, Cas didn’t allow any actual kids onto her battlefield today but to everyone here she’s a baby so….she just shrugs.

“Don’t be shy, Cas. Tell Hawkeye all about the monsters. My favorite’s still the hippocampus that got lost in the Hackensack River.” Yeah, that poor little guy got all turned around to end up that far inland.

“Don’t be mean, he was confused.” They aren’t the most brilliant of creatures under the sea. Cas turns to Barton, “I mean, yes?” She shrugs again, “Most monsters don’t like us. I know some friendly cyclops and some that would rather eat me. Same holds for harpies. Dragons too,” Peleus nice, Ladon is not. “You just couldn’t notice them before.” Cas wonders how long it will take for the Mist to fall now that the world has been made aware. It should continue to exist but it may have to be used rather than assumed to be in place, not that Cas has ever been able to manipulate it.

Thus begins a fun little Q&A that her father sort of participates in when he zones back in. She’s happy when Dr. Banner joins the conversation after they turn to the differences in demigod physiology due to half their being coming from a living energy creature. Yep, they have to keep him. There’s two people at the table that she shouldn’t really be talking about this in front of but she’s too tired and the mind filter is on the fritz.

The conversation turns fun enough to jostle Steve awake when Thor and Cas have a couple of anecdotal based discussions about some of the things they’ve gotten up to. She tries to stick to the tamer ones since her dad’s heart has taken enough of a beating today. Thor’s entertaining and they have him for a couple of days while jurisdiction gets sorted with Loki because he’s a war criminal on more than one planet. That sucks, but it doesn’t surprise her because they’re immortals having a family feud.

Trojan War ringing any bells? It’s typical of beings like them. Doesn’t mean that Thor isn’t a pretty cool person. She manages to secure some of his time in exchange for a small favor.

“Let me reiterate, all you want is for me to look after your brilliant astrophysicist friend and her buddies in case Asgard keeps you away longer than intended.”

“Correct, you would be doing me a great service.” Ha. Joke’s on him. Cas is in the business of collecting the best and brightest right now like Pericles did in Athens. She’d recruit Jane Foster for free and if she gets Selvig too? Even better, the guy threw together a teleportation device in like two days.

Cas will take all of the scientists.

“I think I get a say in what people you bring into the company, Cassie.” She rolls her head to look at her father who had clearly been paying attention despite him facing Dr. Banner.

“So you don’t want me to talk with the scientist who confirmed the existence of life on other planets?” She doesn’t wait for him to reply before returning to Thor, “I can do that so long as you are prepared to answer the questions of one very curious daughter of Athena.”

“We’re probably going to be too busy for you to talk shop for a while.” And her father just has to rain on her parade.

It’s entirely probable that Cas is about to get to know the legal department of Stark Industries better than she ever wanted to. She has been thinking about how they’re going to do this though. Broad strokes? In a way, she can spin the law to her side. Helping disenfranchised kids is a good thing as is keeping them fed, off the streets, educated, and away from abusers (and monsters...mostly). Weapons and combat training? Well, fencing is an extracurricular as are the martial arts. Using their abilities? There’s no better teacher than experience but having people around who’ve been through similar crap is a bonus.

“No, that’s tomorrow's problem. We fought aliens today. Let me enjoy this.” 

“More like in eighteen hours.” What, “Pepper is terrifyingly efficient and I’ve known her for ten years. She’s already spoken to legal in Malibu since New York is probably closed for a little while.”

Oh shit, thank the gods that her father informed Pepper that they’re alive because Cas completely forgot, “The Queen is indeed a terrifying woman.” Cas swiftly forgets that this portion of the conversation has ever happened and starts trying to talk to Dr. Banner about what she’s been working on with Helen.

Gods dammit, Helen….Cas had wanted to tell Helen about her demigodhood personally but she’s fairly certain that her face is all over the news now along with aliens and battlegrounds.

Shit.

Helen’s going to go full scientist on her when she gets to New York.

This is all assuming that Helen doesn’t run away screaming but her deal with Stark Industries really is top tier so she’ll probably stick around.

Okay, more later problems. That’s fine.

Right now she has food and interesting company.

And then the bell over the door rings, “Hey bitch. Hi Tony,” That’s a lesson in respect right there.

It’s not a shocker that they sent her to come and get Cas, “‘Sup, Princess.”

“McLean,” Her father acknowledges, “You need Cas?”

“Yup, the Cabin Heads re-confirmed her as Stategos _ in absentia. _ ” Cas drops what’s left of the shawarma in her hand and Piper starts picking at it over her shoulder, “It was almost unanimous. Katie and Will felt bad because you weren’t there and abstained.” Yes, Cas was acting Strategos during the battle but literally no one has called her that in a year….this was supposed to be a one off because she was in the know with Shield. That’s what she was hoping anyway.

“Do you hate me that much? We’re not even actually at war.” Cas is trying to lessen some of her responsibilities, not take up more(She thought Malcolm could do it?). But judging by her father stiffening beside her, her second statement may not be as true as she wants it to be.

“It's not like your position was ever just about fighting. Besides, you can always refuse the appointment,” Cas just levels a look at Piper. As if anyone believes that Cas would turn down something for Camp Half-Blood, “That’s what I thought. This is really good by the way. I’ll have to come back some other time. Oh, and thank Jarvis for all of the delivery sent to the library. Everyone’s really grateful.” Not grateful enough to bully someone else into all of this work.

Cas groans and leans back. She’s going to have to talk to the Army….Maybe Rhodey will help her. Odds are that the Air Force called him back by now.

“Don’t act surprised, oh great Strategos. You wanted more demigods in the public eye before the mortals found out about us. That didn’t happen so it’s not our fault that everyone knows your face best.” She is the best candidate for presenting themselves to the public eye.

She wields a fry in her dad’s face, “This is your fault.”

“How is this one in any way on me?”

“I don’t know yet but I refuse culpability,” She’s too drained to come up with a better response.

Piper cuts in before one of them gets snippy, “Oh and Tony, there’s a lot of very angry-not at you but on your behalf-demigods that want the heads of whoever ordered the nuclear missile strike on Manhattan. Where the entrance to Olympus is….” She gives the table a predatory sweep, “Don’t suppose Shield would be willing to cough up a name?”

Thor looks confused though, “That attack wasn’t planned?” Uh-oh, Cas really wants to maintain a working relationship with Shield now that they’re out in the open. At least until she doesn’t need their cooperation and she can bury them for trying to nuke her home.

“No,” Piper has gotten so scary with her journalism major well underway.

Cas snorts and looks away. Piper isn’t even using any charmspeak right now, “They’re not spreading that around are they?” Her dad says while pretending to be unaffected. That’s when Cas starts laughing quietly because angry demigods will not keep quiet. 

“Tony, everyone in our little safe zone is shouting about collateral damage and firing on civilian populations.” Oh dear, maybe making sure the demigods were up to date on human rights went a little overboard. They are mostly at an impressionable age, “Also, you saved the world so they’re a little miffed on your behalf.”

She starts fishing for a way to change the subject because Cas can feel the discomfort coming from her dad. It’s not like she can leave if he’s not okay. Luckily the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan saves the meal, “What’s a Strategos?” He’s bleary eyed and confused so he probably didn’t even notice that he helped.

Not that Cas wants to follow this conversation topic either. She gestures for Piper to talk which she’s more than willing to do, “Means Cassie gets to speak for us,” Cas sighs and Piper pats her on the head, “You already were, Cas, now it’s just official.” Again….

“I maintain that someone else would be better.” There’s got to be dozens of better candidates for this mostly because Cas doesn’t want to do it.

“Oh yeah,” Piper crosses her arms and leans over Cas, “Name one, please.”

That’s mean. Putting Cas on the spot like this when she’s been awake for an unholy quantity of hours is just mean, “Ummm….try Jason. Yeah, Supes is perfect.” And Malcolm, she wants to say but Jason already popped out.

Piper disagrees, “Sure, I love Jason,” They’re dating again currently, “But Jason is a Roman not a Greek.”

“Ixnay on the Omansray,” She deliberately avoided bringing them up.

“Oh right,” Piper stands straight, “Strategos, the Romans will start arriving in two days to help with cleanup and integration efforts.” And does the exact opposite of what Cas asked her to do. What’s the point of being Strategos if her people are just going to ignore her?

Cas just wants to take a jump off Stark Tower at this point. Not to impact, just to escape for a while, “Thanks, Pipes.” She buries her head behind her hands instead and sighs.

Right.

Back into the fray.

She stands and turns to her dad, “You’re not going to keel over or anything right? Because I actually have to go.”

He waves her off, “Despite what your slander suggests, I’m not actually old. Shoo.”

“Later people,” They get a mock salute from her and no one seems to be able to keep up with the whirlwind that is Piper McLean especially after fighting for hours. The two of them walk arm in arm for the door because it’s been a long day and they’ve earned some weirdness.

Only to be stopped at the door by salt and pepper hair and blue eyes that used to be shared by her best friend, “Lord Hermes!” Dammit, Cas and Pepper are quick to back up and nod to the messenger god, “You honor us. It’s been a long time.” Not since Luke’s pyre….

Behind her there’s some rather obvious shifting to see the god that appeared in a relaxed manner so that’s good. There would’ve been cause for concern if he showed up dressed for Olympus but he’s wearing some casual day clothes.

“Cas,” This god is kind and if it was safe for Cas to have favorites it would be Hermes, “You know I don’t care about those formalities.”

“Better to be safe than sorry. We can’t all be insolent.”

Piper’s quick to add, “Like Jason, only he would talk back to Zeus.” Those two both turned down godhood….and...back then Cas might have taken it. Annabeth had Percy and it had been a really rough week. Now, she looks over her shoulder and considers that immortality isn’t nearly as appealing as it would have been three years ago.

Funny that.

“Cas?” She and her father have gotten quite good at having entire conversations using one or two words each. It’s like their own language that the rest of the world isn’t fast enough to follow. Right there he’s asking if there’s about to be another fight….problem is she doesn’t know what the god of messages, travelers, thieves, athletes, commerce, trade, diplomacy, and invention could possibly want right now.

“It’s nothing to worry about, Cas. You and Ms. McLean can go. I have my duties as a messenger to take care of.” That’s a rapid drop in stress levels right there. He probably wants to talk about the recent events and the Tesseract and Asgard and Olympus and demigods...yeah. The gods have a lot to do right now. Ha. Win, they should work, “Oh and good call putting my kids on-what did they call it? Ah yes-good guy breaking and entering to save the idiots.”

It was the only way to make them go door to door….She just smiles and says, “I’ve never found a door one of your kids couldn’t get through.”

“Go heroes, the stakes are only going to go up from here,” That’s ominous and makes her hesitate to leave the Avengers and her father behind, “As if your father, the inventor, would be in danger from me.”

That’s fair but she still waits for her father to nod, “Well then, my Lady,” She loops her arm with Piper again, “Let’s bounce.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The battle is over and the existence of demigods is now exposed!!!!
> 
> Crazy days are coming. While I won't subject you guys to the minutiae of every process that would afflict the demigods in trying to press forward, I will try to address or even mention as many of the theoretical problems a group like them would face in order to be accepted.
> 
> I will be pulling shamelessly from X-Men lore to get there and genuinely going for a best case scenario.
> 
> Maybe I'm being overly optimistic in 2020 but sometimes I like the idea of the good guys winning because they're the good guys and they've earned it.


	9. The Hard Parts Come After the Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to AthenaLEC who gave me that super awesome comment on Cult of Alexander. 😊 They know what they did.
> 
> This chapter and the next one are going to deal in the immediate fallout of the Chitauri 'invasion.' I don't remember if it's ever stated how far between the end of the fight and Thor's exit via convenient Tesseract channeling device was but....in my eyes at least a few days had to go by. So I did that.
> 
> I don't know if anyone caught it but my reference to New Yorkers going 'this is our new thing and it's awesome' is a vague reference to Spider-man. In one of the comics the people literally pull an "I'm Spartacus" when someone demands Peter reveal his secret identity. Also in the Tobey Maguire series there's that amazing scene in the subway. It's ridiculous. I love it. This story is about superheroes and demigods so I think I can get away with some faith in humanity stuff too. 
> 
> AS FAR AS DR. SELVIG, DR. FOSTER, AND DARCY FREAKING LEWIS ARE CONCERNED
> 
> I have plans for them. The Dark World has many things in it that pissed me off. Number one was how Shield clearly dropped Selvig like a hot potato after the event of the Avengers. How else would he have fallen so far off the deep end that he would run nude through Stonehenge? He was kidnapped and manipulated on their watch but they did not get him appropriate help afterwards. Not only that but he probably had a lot of potentially dangerous secrets rattling around in his noggin' but they're like 'let's do nothing.'
> 
> Nice.
> 
> Same for Dr. Foster and Darcy by the way....
> 
> So yeah, I'm going to stomp my feet like a cranky toddler and scream mine. I hope you all stick around anyway.

Let's make something abundantly clear.

Cas loves democracy(Say it like Palpatine if you must.). It’s pretty awesome that everyone in camp gets a say in the important things that affect all of them. Everyone is a loose term….the actual small children do not vote. Sixteen was determined at random to be an acceptable age or being a Cabin Head. (It’s an imperfect system in an imperfect world.)

Whatever.

The point stands that Cas loves democracy.

She doesn't like bureaucracy.

Cas’s walk through the rubble coated streets is full of updates from Piper about everything she’d been ignoring during the battle itself. While Piper was in fact able to smooth things over with the military and the police during the fighting there’s some issues brewing now. Mostly along the lines of arguing who has the right to direct what happens next.

Which is fair because the mortal Powers That Be have no reason to trust the super powered young adults with Stark Tech that they’ve never heard of before.

Still her arrival at the New York Public Library is messy…

Demigods are immediately in her face before she gets to the stairs which are apparently being used for triage and supply distribution. Some are just excited and some have questions for her. Everyone wants to know what happens next but Cas has a migraine. It’s better after the shawarma but still not ideal(Standard Excedrin dosages aren’t exactly effective for her and they don’t know anything about what the long term effects of double dosing would be for her either.). Luckily Sherman shows up and clears the crowd for her...ha… she did end up getting a Child of Ares for a bodyguard, a temporary one at least.

When they get to the formerly gorgeous reading room there’s an instant when Cas wants to flee from the broken window on the right hand side. All of the tables have been shoved to the periphery to optimize floor space and there in the middle of the chaos she makes eye contact with one Annabeth Chase who’s arguing with a man in uniform. Rank is unknown from this distance.

What follows goes about as well as can be expected.

The adults (yes, Cas is an adult but she means the adultier adults that believe they are better at adulting than everyone else) seem to be under the impression that their uniforms and experience make them qualified to deal with what happened outside today.

“Well, Captain Royce, if the United States has prior experience with attacks from non-human entities I’ll be happy to step aside and let you handle all of this alone. To be honest, I’d prefer to work with you though. There’s a lot that needs to be done.” And isn’t that the truth.

Cas has no interest in fighting over who’s in charge and now that everyone seems aware of that the issue of the enhanced children of Greek gods is temporarily tabled in favor of setting up a grid system to find stray survivors, clear rubble from inaccessible streets, and organize supply runs because water is important. They damaged a lot of water mains and gods know what’s gotten into the city’s water supply through those breaches during the fighting, “Jarvis, make a note to budget that damage since it was directly caused by us.”

 _”Of course, I’ll put it next to the multitude of other things for you to get to in the next decade.”_ The little brother she never knew she didn’t want….

The mortals themselves-civilians, not army-are far more welcoming. It’s possible that they’re mostly in shock though so Cas isn't holding her breath that it sticks around(Even if they are New Yorkers.). The media though, those people are either crazy or really brave. Cas heard her name mentioned when she went by in the same breath as her father and the Avengers but she didn’t speak to any of them. Nah, the less occupied demigods can keep them busy for now because in addition to getting who they are out there Cas wants people asking about the nuke(“Get that shit on every TV screen”). She’s very mad about that.

Everyone is only too happy to help. Ha, it’s only just happened but no one seems prepared to let that one go anytime soon. It’s making the army uncomfortable too, as it should. Her father said that it came from the helicarrier but not Fury which is wonderful to think about. Shield with nuclear weapons….because they were so responsible with the Tesseract. Sadly, Cas lacks the credibility to directly point fingers and cry foul but she can get other people asking questions for her.

Blah, blah, blah. There’s questions that she answers succinctly and hand shakes with people she didn’t know before today. Many names are forgotten immediately so it’s convenient that the military has a labeling system. There’s answering to both Strategos and Dr. Stark in equal measure.

Cas makes it long enough to assign team leaders that promise to play nice with the mortals before she commandeers a janitor’s office to nap in(alarm for 30 mins). Gods….she hasn’t been this tired since the Necromanteion.

~~~

Less than twenty four hours later Cas is seated in a Stark Tower conference room. There was a nominal bit of a fight put up by Cas because she shouldn’t just speak for all of the Greeks like this. Evidently Percy blabbed to Mrs. Jackson who spoke to Pepper to inform her about what’s happening. So Pepper knows that Cas does in fact speak for the Greeks currently and now she’s here.

She’s a little bit scared too.

Her father is next to her also looking like he’s got negative seventy three hours of sleep to his name, so they match. That’s not what’s concerning, no, the concerning part is that Pepper is on the other side of the table (she’s not mad at them, she’s just mad in general) along with a PR lady (Kasey Allard) and the head of the NY legal team (Donald Becker, and Cas is surprised that he came in). These are the people that oversaw the events of ‘I am Iron Man,’ ‘I’ve successfully privatized world peace,’ and Cas’s own glorious emergence into society.

It’s amazing but they’ve all managed to communicate silently how frustratingly like her father she is right now.

Cas maintains that none of this is her fault.

“Let’s start with the existence of Olympus, Dr. Stark.” Mr. Becker kicks it off.

“Do we really need to? Because there’s already video of this that Jarvis can pull up.” Otherwise this is going to take forever.

“In your own words, please.”

Then this is going to take forever, “Alright, you asked…” Thus begins yet another retelling of the history of Western Civilization told through the lens of a sleep deprived twenty two year old. The reason her father is there is to stave off tangents because she has no clue what’s relevant to normal people. She has no idea what a normal person is.

The first one to interrupt her is Ms. Allard, “And the ...demigods have always protected humanity even though they were nearly killed off?”

“Yes.” Mostly. The earth is still spinning so the average falls into protection.

“And you came to your father for help moving forward?”

“Also yes,” It’s not like there was anyone else who could’ve helped her. Was she supposed to try Hammer? Ha, even thinking that felt wrong. She may have just given herself hives.

The woman grins and she wonders how that's helpful but she goes back into a minimally scientific explanation as to why demigods are limited by technology. Best part is that neither of them are freaked out by the existence of monsters like telkheins and giant bears (bears are already giant but the one Cas fought in the Rockies once was even more giant) which could be a side-effect of recent events or working for Stark Industries in general. The world will never know.

Once the summary was over Mr. Becker also had some questions and a few are worth noting, “How many demigods would you say qualify as minors?”

Trickily phrased. The man is good at his job, “Do you mean mentally or numerically?” Because there’s a difference.

And he knows it, “Is there a difference?”

“Absolutely, what we’ve survived leaves us more mature than our agemates. It would be a disservice to have us misrepresented due to our years of birth.” This is going to be a sticking point in the coming weeks and months if/when the CPS tries to swoop in.

He nods, “Roughly, how many would you say qualify as legal adults mentally.”

Two years ago she would have said 100% but times have changed and more kids are safe, “If I were to ballpark the Greek Demigods then I’d say maybe...forty percent.”

They spend some time further defining what being an adult mentally means which is apparently a debatable topic that becomes another item on the list of many things that Cas doesn’t want to deal with(But apparently she won’t need to??? These people are amazing.). From there the very competent lawyer extrapolates an important problem from Cas’s explanation of unhealthy home environments for most demigods that find their way to NY on their own.

“How many are runaways?” Because if the mortal family isn’t the problem, it’s the recurring monster attacks or the medications like adderall when they don’t need them(They’re better off without it. Those meds slow them down and have all sorts of crummy side effects.) 

“That’ll be seventy eight percent of the year rounders-the kids that live in Camp Half-Blood permanently-which represents about thirty four percent of the whole population.” Cas isn’t speaking for the Romans because those guys practically sever their connections to their mortal families in favor of New Rome. Legion is family and all that. 

There’s a brief discussion on whether or not the runaways are aware of emancipation and yes many are but some were declared dead by their old families and some don’t want to go to court with the mortals over this. How could they have possibly won in the past?

The legal department is going to have all sorts of fun setting precedents for this. Her citizenship is potentially up for debate as is her status as a human. She is human by the way. They have the blood tests but naysayers will exist. Also, on the topic of her species and citizenship, SI is going to bat for her (and therefore all demigods) on what legal rights and protections she has.

They’re literally doing a Bicentennial Man except she doesn’t plan to weaken herself or put a time limit on her lifespan. All of this will be done with minimal actual input from her. She’ll testify if needed of course but, “Dr. Stark it would be such a shame if politics were to pull you away from actually helping people.”

That was Ms. Allard. Cas kind of likes Ms. Allard. She even promises to start releasing information about the gods based on what Cas just told them. That way when Cas does have to answer to the world the basics will be covered already.

Cas just sits back and exchanges glances with her dad and Pepper both of which tell her to do what the professionals say….which is weird considering it’s her father but he’s stressed about….everything at the moment.

So, Cas is not allowed to:

Speak to news crews.

Talk about religion.

Refer to other humans as mortals. (“Can I call them Muggles?” “No, try people.”)

Show off with her abilities in public. (She was kind of looking forward to jumping and climbing stuff at will but whatever. For the cause…)

Engage in any kind of public athletics.

Pretty much she’s not allowed to speak to anyone unless it’s a preapproved press conference or interview...which will be forthcoming….yay.

Cas is to tell any demigods to avoid confrontations in public (they know that) and if any of them are legal adults looking to make sure everyone knows what they are (public advocates and the like) then Cas needs them to come in. She’s actually already talked to the others about this and well, the crew of the Argo II is getting back together. They’re a group of eight so nice and balanced with both Romans and Greeks and at this point their youngest member is seventeen. Hazel will be eighteen in December so close enough.

The moment they have everything they need from her Cas makes a strategic retreat to the now drafty penthouse and crashes on the nearest glass free flat surface. Jarvis is under strict instructions to let her sleep for six magical hours. It’s for the best, Pepper and her father need a minute or two to come to terms with the last seventy two hours(Is that correct? She isn’t sure because time has become an abstract concept beyond the boundaries of her comprehension.).

Honestly, for Cas the attack is just another speed bump. It doesn’t come close to topping 2010 or the first time Manhattan was intruded upon by a hostile party on her watch.

~~~

Time waits for no demigod so the next day Cas is moving again but this is towards a slightly more positive event.

“And there are no cultural greetings or formalities?”

“Blondie, I fought aliens with the guy. We didn’t exchange life philosophies.” Cas has managed to snag some time with Annabeth and Thor so they’re waiting on the very ruined balcony of Stark Tower for the aforementioned Asgardian to join them.

She just rolls her eyes at Cas. It’s a normal occurrence, “You and I both know how much that tells you about a person.”

“Fine,” But she’s not going to like it, “There’s clearly some dismissal of ordinary humans but he respected me and by extension dad just fine,” That was under the scepter's influence though, “And definitely ‘glory to Valhalla’ warrior culture there. Overall for an old and powerful dude, he’s fairly relaxed. But loud.” 

The look Annabeth gives gives Cas says quite a lot, “I’m still giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

Cas just shrugs while toeing a piece of glass on the ground, “He’s no Olympian,” In strength or attitude, “But he’s not like us either. That’s what I meant.” He’s made some sort of deal with them though because her father is holding the Tesseract for Thor until they leave and Cas isn’t allowed to touch it which isn’t fair. Earth is keeping the mind control stick when they could have the portal cube. It’s a raw deal.

Further discussion on the Asgardian is put on hold by his arrival via self propelled Hammer (Mjnolnir? Yeah, that.), “Cassandra!”

“Hey, Thor.” Since they’re comrades they clasp forearms in respect because that’s a universal greeting apparently.

“I am glad to hear from you. You must thank your healers on my behalf for looking over Erik Selvig.”

“That?” Like the mortals are equipped to help him, “The man was controlled by an object of unknown origin and power. Mt. Sinai isn’t equipped for that so no biggie.” Cas didn’t manage to find Barton to make a similar offer to him and….any of his Shield colleagues too(Clar called her soft again…). She steps back and waves Annabeth forward, “This is Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and we believe a descendant of Asgard.”

Thor is a strange one. It’s in a good way because while he’s clearly excitable-to put it mildly-and eager for a good fight he’s also educated royalty. All of this is visible in the way he carries himself and in the way gives Annabeth a deep formal nod which she returns. “We are well met, Lady Annabeth. The skills of your people in battle were quite the sight to behold.”

Not his best possible opening since the demigods are really done with fighting in such large battles. It’s exhausting. Regardless, Annabeth knows a thing or two about not stepping on toes, “You too,” She crosses her arms and assesses Thor in that way that Cas just knows is looking for weaknesses, “That trick with the Chrysler Building was pretty helpful and so was catching that chariot off 47th St.” If it wasn’t clear, Annabeth isn’t easily impressed anymore….not that she ever really was.

They’ve kind of seen it all at this point.

Thor doesn’t seem to notice or he ignores it, “The army of Olympus was as impressive as my father said. It was an honor to fight alongside it.” Cas resists wrinkling her nose at that comment, “Now, I believe we are here to discuss how Asgard and humans first began to interact.”

Better, “Right this way, Point Break.” She likes that one. It’s fitting, “We got the whole demolished floor to enjoy for the next two hours. Oh, Annabeth, I meant to ask. Dad mentioned making some structural changes. Can you look it over and make sure he doesn’t forget anything important?” Cas leads the way inside to the cleaner but still drafty room.

“Sure. You know, he does look like Patrick Swayze.”

“Right!” She can’t unsee it now and that’s not even her favorite Keanu movie.

“Is this Patrick a hero of your world?” Thor says from behind them.

Cas and Annabeth pause to look at each other, “Yes.” Cas says without any real hesitation and Annabeth rolls her eyes. The man was a gift to humankind. Point Break, The Outsiders, Red Dawn,….Dirty Dancing. Thor’s in esteemed company.

Cas flops down on the couch and claps her hands together, “As much as I’d enjoy talking movies with an extraterrestrial, we are here to talk space and cultural things.” This is going to be fun.

Annabeth sits down eagerly next to Cas like only a fellow hungry knowledge seeker can, “Right. Let’s start with, when did the Asgardians come to Earth? We’ll move into science next. History first, Cas.” Annabeth cuts off Cas before she can complain and Thor seems entertained by the exchange.

What follows is a dramatic retelling of the ninth and tenth centuries in Northern Europe. It doesn’t surprise the audience at all when it differs wildly from the Poetic Edda because mortals tell some wild stories. Still, it’s amazing to hear about it because the modern demigods had no hecking clue that this occurred. Cas had been under the impression that the demigods were all hiding and living under the radar during that period in history. Turns out they fought Frost Giants and befriended Odin at the behest of Olympus.

“Why did the Frost Giants attack us?”

At Annabeth's reasonable question Thor shifts a little, “The other realms were under the impression that the Earth was underdeveloped,” OH? Awkward…, “Asgard annexed the planet and made it one of the nine under the Allfather’s rule.” And then Olympus said hello, “Laufey, king of the Frost Giants, sought to conquer the realms through force and made to attack Earth believing it was a weak point but the combined might of the Allfather and the Children of Olympus proved to be too much and he was routed before he could spread further than your northernmost regions.”

So...Asgard tried to colonize Earth, brought war with them, and then were told to fuck off by Olympus once they overstayed their welcome.

Seems legit.

“Did Hermes reopen communication and travel between our worlds?” Now, Cas is aware that not everyone is subject to the rule of Olympus but if Zeus orders no talking to the Asgardians then there’s not much she can do about it. It would be a shame because friendly aliens are definitely something she’d like to have around.

“Within reason,” He smiles, “When my father sent me to Earth as a punishment,” Wait, what? “We hadn’t heard a whisper from Olympus in centuries and assumed that it had faded. That you could evade Heimdall’s gaze is quite the feat.” As it turns out, Heimdall does not have nine mothers and he has super sight not hearing. Disappointing because she had _questions_ but this makes more sense as sound doesn’t traverse the vacuum of space.

Annabeth lets that comment about Earth being an appropriate punishment float on by, “That’s good. My family in Boston is going to have so many questions.”

“Okay, this is all great but can we get on to the cool stuff, please?” She tries to pin Thor in place with her best ‘share your knowledge’ face, “How’s the bifrost work? What’s it’s power source? Would you classify it as science, magic, or both?”

Thor is not a scholar but he’s had some practice with this while talking with Dr. Foster (Cas is going to meet this woman and bribe her with potential access to the Chase Asgardian Collection.) so he does a decent job answering her questions. It’s all in general terms but it’s enough to tell her that on Asgard there’s zero divide between practical magic use and science.

Sweet.

“And you promise to watch over and assist Jane when I leave?”

Ha.

Like that’s hard.

“Thor, the woman studies Einstein-Rosen Bridges and a wormhole was opened in the sky above us. It makes no sense for me to not want to help her.” Cas wants her to come here but she’ll settle for the occasional consult because this is a new branch of curiosity for Cassandra Stark. She wants to know how to make it go.

“Count me in too.”

“What?” She turns to Annabeth, “Why?”

She ticks it off on her fingers, “First one to contact an Asgardian. First to capture images of the Bifrost. She’s interacted with more Asgardians than we have. And my family can probably help her with a lot of her research.”

“Jane is a woman of great intelligence and wisdom.” Thor says in agreement, “You would indeed benefit from her knowledge.”

It’s a done deal then. Cas will be making moves to steal Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig(Shield doesn’t deserve Selvig since he got abducted on their watch.) away to the darkside of Stark Industries. She can hear the maniacal laugh in the back of her head but she grins instead, “I look forward to meeting her.”

~~~

It says something about how tired she is and how much trust she has in her environment that she doesn’t wake up immediately after the door to her office opens. Stark Tower, even damaged by aliens, has some of the best security in the world and she’s many floors up in the heart of R&D with Jarvis watching over her. It’s a safe space.

Except from meddlesome family members that enjoy making her jump, “Hey there, General Eisenhower.” Cas is up fast enough to bang her knee into the desk (it’s reinforced so it doesn’t break) but she doesn’t fall or anything, thank the gods.

It takes her a moment of blinking to establish her location and who just woke her but then she grins, “Rhodey!” She’s around that desk and hugging him almost immediately after that, “When did you get in? How’s the Middle East? Is War Machine alright? Any bugs?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” He laughs into her very messy hair, “Ease up on the ribs.” She loosens her grip immediately and apologizes, “I didn’t say let go. You fought aliens in New York, this is an affirmation of life hug.” He steps back after a minute or so that she really needed, “And the first thing you ask about is me and War Machine? After the stunt you and your dad pulled here?”

She knew he’d be jealous. Cas leans back against her desk and crosses her arms, “Please, this was hardly a stunt. It had almost two hours of planning put into it.”

“Uh-huh,” He nods along, “A whole two hours. I’m very impressed. A whole two hours where neither of you called me.”

“You were off the grid-”

“As if that would stop you two from getting a call to me,” Yeah, but she wasn’t going to put him on the spot like that when they already had so many people in the city, “That’s not why I’m here though. Your little reveal put me on the spot.” But it appears she did anyway.

Shit, “I didn’t think about that.” Cas didn’t even consider that her ‘surprise, I’m a demigod’ reveal would put Rhodey in a bad position, “Oh man, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even consider how this would affect-”

“Stop,” He holds up a hand, “I’m not here to send off a Stark guilt train. I’m here to tell you I've been applauded for my discretion. If we knew you guys were in New York then we wouldn’t have had the element of surprise.” That’s a lucky twist, “If this had gone any other way it would have ended badly but now I’ve been asked to make sure you don’t do anything too crazy.”

She snorts, “You mean behave like dad at my age.” It’s too bad that her relation to her father bars her from some of the crazier stories but at the same time….she doesn’t want to know.

“Exactly,” He points at her, “We both know that won’t happen so you’ve gotten me a paid vacation.”

What?

“Can’t you keep the dumb old men with fancy uniforms and ranks out of my way at least?”

“I’m Air Force not Army or…” He gets a thoughtful look, “Who else is here?”

“Last I checked? FEMA, the Army, and the National Guard(Shield but they’re behaving)...also the Coast Guard but they’re not that bad. Wait. Isn’t the National Guard made up of the Army and Air Force? You can make them stop fighting with me.” She actually perks up a bit at that.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” She’ll hope until she stops breathing, “I’m a lieutenant colonel, Cas. Not a general.” This man is so due for a promotion though.

“Pshh…” She waves that off, “You should be. You’re smarter and better than all of those old mortals.”

“I heard you weren’t supposed to be calling people that anymore,” Huh? How does he know that?

Someone tattled on her, “Who told you that? And I call people what I want.” When she can.

“Yeah, when Pepper isn’t around,” Guilty, “I know you by now, Cassie.”

“Whatever,” She brings up a hand in hopes of staving off the headache she’s had for the last two days, “Do you think there’s anything you can do to help out?”

He seems to remember that she was just sleeping, “I’ll see what I can do.” 

“This is why you’re my favorite uncle,” Cas slumps just a little bit, “Thanks, we could really use the help.”

“I bet you use that one on Happy too.”

Never, “Happy is Happy. He has his own category.” 

  
  


~~~

The arrival of the Romans revitalizes the media circus. Frank and Hazel had been kept in the loop and came ready to work. They’re not big on formalities anymore but as part of saying hello they came dressed the part and had a legionnaire behind them baring the standard of the Twelfth Legion along with that golden eagle. For their part, the Romans are dressed in a more modern and effective (because it’s her design) take on armor and only Frank and Hazel have the purple capes denoting their rank. No one is hiding at all and while Cas loves it she’s also curious how it’s going to be received. Hazel looks older than she is and she acts older than she is but she’s technically seventeen years old...how will the people at home take a young woman like this standing at the head of the Roman Machine?

According to GI Jane the answer is not well but she’s trying to have some faith in humanity now that the cat’s out of the bag. She’s putting a lot of faith in the Court of Public Opinion and her current social standing(pre-Chitauri anyway…) protecting them and this looks like the best route forward.

Normally, Cas would be moving in for hugs and dismissing all of the titles and procedures but this is a big moment. She stands and waits on the stairs of the New York Public Library, which they haven’t returned yet, and greets her friends, “Khairete, Praetores.” She brings her right fist over her chest and nods. Okay….it’s a little showy but that’s the point.

“Ave, Stategos.” And they return the gesture. Then it’s all smiles because everyone is acutely aware of the cameras that have been documenting everything.

“Where the hell have you Romans been?” She waves them inside as the cohorts move to resupply Bryant Park where tents have been set up until better accommodations can be arranged for the people turned out onto the streets. “Did you walk?” It’s not too many people as not too many apartment buildings were ruined but power and water are off until the buildings and waterways are inspected for damages. Mostly businesses were damaged but some buildings are both apartments and office space….so yeah. They’ve got everyone out there like a miniaturized Hooverville. 

“Swam actually,” Frank says in reply, “We had to take the canal. There was traffic.” 

She has to laugh at the image of swimming Romans because it's ridiculous. Cas has seen the New Roman Navy.

“How is everyone, Cassie?” Hazel cuts through her happy place to the heart of the matter.

“No casualties for the demigods, if you can believe it.” She says while leading the way to where the old people(Not her Old Man, just the old people) await introductions, “The running theory is that the Chitauri had no clue what they were walking into. They thought they would be foxes in the hen house but…”

Frank shakes his head, “They ran in not expecting opposition and couldn’t rally. That’s embarrassing.”

“Actually….” Cas holds outside of the door and her dear Romans wait for her, “I’m not so sure.” She sort of rocks back on her heels and debates telling Frank and Hazel about this. Technically, among the demigods Frank and Hazel are of equal rank to her so she should since they’re working together but….They’re so much younger than her.

“You think that something else happened.” When Cas doesn’t elaborate Hazel continues, “Cassie, whatever it is, we’re involved too.” The words of wisdom from Hazel Levesque.

“I was speaking to Thor again yesterday and he’s sticking to his story that the Chitauri agreed to take the Earth for Loki in exchange for the Tesseract.” Cas waits for that statement to sink in.

Frank gets it, “That doesn't make any sense. They opened the portal for Loki from across the universe so if they just wanted the Tesseract they could have opened the portal, grabbed it, and left again.” He always gets these things.

“Then,” Hazel looks between them with concern, “What did they want?” She doesn’t know.

And there’s one other thing, “My dad…” Is alive and fine back at the tower. They’re doing a movie later because they earned it, “He was really shaken by what was out there. He won’t tell me what he saw, obviously,” She rolls her eyes. He’s unlikely to tell her unless she makes it her problem or he emotionally processes. Three guesses for which happens first, “But with the amount of Chitauri that were coming from the portal...my guess is that he saw the rest of their army.”

Frank takes over, “If this was an invasion then it was a poorly thought out one. It wasn’t just a raid either. I saw the footage and they weren’t trying to take anything,” A child of Mars in action people. Take notes. Everything Cas had to learn, Frank knows on instinct, “They attacked a city that’s important to the mortals symbolically...you could say economically too but I don’t think aliens care about Wall Street. No...that’s not it….I don’t think we know enough to figure out why they did it.” Exactly, she doesn’t know and she doesn’t know where to look to find answers.

“I think at this point the ‘why’ can wait. We need to focus on recovery and dealing with the fallout.” Hazel is, of course, correct. The immediate problem is making sure the ~~mortals~~ baseline humans come to terms with their existence in a safe and healthy way for the entire population.

“True, which is why I’m really glad you guys are here. You can take like half of my workload between the two of you. But, we do need to figure out if we’re under threat or if that was a one off.” From their faces, the three of them are in agreement that this wasn’t a one off. “Let’s go meet the brass.”

The brass sucks but it’s necessary and really not much worse than dealing with the Senate (New Rome not DC….that’s potentially forthcoming). It’s so much easier now that she has Frank and Hazel with her though because they are already practiced in working with people who are significantly older and overly secure in their superiority. They don’t exactly steamroll over anyone per say it’s just that the Chitauri weren’t their first rodeo and they just have more energy than the older people.

It becomes a game of keep up or shut up. (Plus, she has Rhodey in her corner now!)

She never thought she’d say this but as she’s leaving that evening to head back to Stark Tower Cas shakes her head at the veritable tent city that’s gone up and says, “Thank the gods for the Romans.” They’ve offered space in Lamark High-Rise for them but some of the Legion are staying around the clock for protection and outreach purposes.

That’s called being an ambassador.

She’s just glad that everyone is doing their part and the demigods are getting the opportunity to show off all of the good that they can do before anyone has a chance to pass judgement. 

Stop. Cas mentally puts a lock on all of these thoughts because she’s about to make her father watch Disney with her.

It’s Meet the Robinsons so it’s fine but still….Tony Stark watches Disney with his adult daughter. They’re both too tired for anything more mentally stimulating anyway.

~~~

Today’s the day.

She’s leaning against her bike on Bethesda Terrace as the place is temporarily ‘secured’ by a few Shield suits. These guys are thoroughly dressed for their role in the next MIB movie and their car even has the Shield logo on it. So, it looks like they’re over the whole hidden in plain sight thing too. After an ‘alien invasion’ people seem to be open to the idea of heroes and people there to protect them from out of the ordinary threats making it a good time for them to step up.

It’s a brave new world.

Her father pulls up next to her and she pulls a face when she sees the silver briefcase in his hand. He’s unsympathetic to her plight, “You're still complaining about this?”

“Look,” Crosses her arms, “If Earth is going to keep one of the space objects then it should be the one your dad studied successfully and without summoning angry aliens, not the stick with passive mind control powers.” Pollux checked her over with a fine toothed comb and could detect zero changes to her psyche but everyone was put off by the existence of something that can take away free will.

“Point Break needs to fly back to Neverland,” And now she will be picturing Thor as a hammer swinging Tinkerbell, “And seeing as the first time the aliens opened the door from the outside we probably shouldn’t keep it here.” It’s true. Earth played their hand with regards to their defenses during the attack. It amounted to a small enhanced ground force and a nuke so it isn’t likely to have been all that impressive to anyone watching from the other side. And they were. Cas knows someone was watching because the Chitauri were hive minded organisms meaning they were receiving commands but also transmitting information back. Sadly, this is still a later problem that gets to keep her up at night.

“Then he should take both. I don’t particularly care what the ‘World Security Council’ wants.” She does make finger quotes because a pretentious name like that deserves it. According to Fury those are the people who ordered a nuclear strike and several members have been ‘asked’ to resign. Fury did not use finger quotes but she felt them. Regardless, she’d like to know where this WSC came from because she’s never heard of it and neither has Chiron. “That thing is weird and honestly I have no desire to be near it again.” Sadly, they’re another much later problem.

Her father nods but waves her on because the rest of the Avengers have arrived (Dr. Banner came with Natasha and Barton) along with Dr. Selvig and a van full of equipment he cannibalized from the invasion. They’ve got everything they need to send Thor and Loki back to Asgard.

Thor walks Loki to the center of the terrace while Cas watches the proceedings with feigned cool detachment. She wonders if anyone else realizes how important this is. It’s the first successfully upheld agreement between Earth and another world in recorded history….and she’s involved. Win. Sadly, it’s a prison transfer(Loki’s in a muzzle and if that doesn’t say something about Asgard’s justice…) and not any sort of cultural exchange but after talking with Thor about the possibilities there’s hope for more in the future.

Apparently, Loki set off quite a few red herrings in the Allfather’s domain before making a move on Earth when Odin’s forces were spread out so Thor needs to quell a few uprisings (rebellions(?)) in his father's kingdom(empire(?)). It might take a while but there’s a good chance that contact will be established with the Asgardian descendants on Earth. Until then, they’ll keep their heads down because even if the demigods are well received the descendants don’t have any extra abilities to defend themselves with. According to Annabeth they’ve only just started making headway with the language so they’ve got a lot more to do before using any of the artifacts. Assuming they work.

It made for excellent bribing material to get Dr. Selvig to talk to her and Annabeth after an introduction from Thor though. Again, win.

While she’s thinking, Dr. Selvig pulls out a device from a van that looks like a large modified cathode ray tube and hands it to Thor. Her father easily passes the briefcase to Dr. Banner, who opens it and uses tongs to lift the Tesseract. She really did want more time with it but all she gets is the notes the Shield provided and what Jarvis took from their servers. C’est la vie. There’s the possibility of an energy shield taking shape in her brain though.

At the very least she’s getting Dr. Selvig and Dr. Foster as a part of this deal. Well, they don’t know that yet but working with her helps get them to Annabeth which in turn gets them to Asgardian tech...if they’re still interested after the space attack. Dr. Selvig has earned some R&R but he can get in contact with Cas and Annabeth at any time.

Thor takes the Tesseract and the simplified portal device - it only has to transport two very durable beings so there’s less bells and whistles - and offers the other side to Loki. He hesitates but he eventually grabs on. Thor glances over all of them and gives a firm nod before turning his half of the device, activating the Tesseract and sending them back to Asgard in a sweeping blast of cool blue light.

“Wow,” She blinks at the sky, “That looked hella fun.” No one really acknowledges her statement but she can feel the confusion. It’s just...it looks like a fun ride to another planet. How can that be anything other than extraordinarily tempting?

Her father and Dr. Banner break off to get into his Acura (not her favorite in the garage) and are intercepted by Steve who shakes her father’s hand before heading towards Cas. He gives her a nod as Cas goes to get on her own bike.

“Captain,” The man gets a smile from her after having gone through that battle together. They’re not friends but she’ll call him an ally.

“Cassandra,” He’s also gotten comfortable using her first name, “You mentioned other….time travelers before.”

Oh, she doesn’t outwardly react but she is surprised that he came to her about it, “Yeah, you want some phone numbers or something?” Nico and Hazel are in the city currently because their abilities are invaluable for finding the nearly or definitely dead. It’s grim work but it needs to be done and she’s grateful that they’re helping.

He hesitates a moment before pulling out a Nokia. A Nokia flip phone….people still use those? Well, Cas really shouldn’t use it. With the chaos of the past few days there’s no telling what’s slipped through their defenses and into the city. As soon as it’s safe, Cas will be trying to convince some satyrs to try and sniff anything out that shouldn’t be on the island.

That’s not important though because Steve has a flip phone. It’s….there’s nothing for it. Cas quickly pulls out her’s and rattles off two numbers from her contacts, “The first is Nico. He’s eighteen and he was born in….you know I’m not actually sure but his mother brought him to the states from Italy as WWII was kicking off. Hazel is seventeen, definitely more patient than her brother, but also very busy. She’s from Louisiana, pre-War.”

If he’s surprised by their ages he doesn’t show it, “I’ll think about reaching out.” Please, do it. The man needs help adapting and sure Nico and Hazel are significantly younger than him but they’re the only ones with similar life experiences. Anyway, he leaves too so Cas gets ready to head out.

“Hey, Dr. Stark,” That’s surprising.

She stops before she pulls her helmet on, “How can I help you, Agent Barton?” He got glowing reviews from the demigods he shared roof space with but the man is still Shield.

“I need you to tell Austin that it was my arrow not his that took down Loki.” That’s even more surprising.

This isn’t a big deal though, “You beat a child of Apollo in archery?” She’ll still give him a hard time even if she’ll enjoy passing this particular message along.

“I did,” He crosses his arms and yep she gets what Kayla meant by him being alright, “Kid should know when he loses.”

Well okay then, “I’ll let him know, Agent Barton.” She gets some stiff nod from the man before he leaves with Natasha. If only all of Shield was like that guy then they’d be an okay group.

She finishes pulling on her helmet and the display almost immediately shows her father calling her. He’d best not need anything right now because she’s fulfilled her talk with people quota and is heading home.

“Is this important?” She’s not in the mood for any more socialization. It’s been nonstop people for the whole week, “Because I’ve got a wonderful schedule packed with Chinese food and crap TV for me to get to.”

 _“Swing by the tower instead. Brucie here needs the VIP tour.”_

That is tempting to think about but, “I had better be paid for my time as a tour guide.”

_“It’s participate in the tour or I don’t say which areas are for your private work.”_

He thinks he’s got her with that one but the jokes on him because Dr. Banner is in a similar field of study so he knows how to use her stuff, “That’s fine. As long as he replaces and properly labels any stock solutions and keeps my glassware and lenses clean we’re in business.” He still forgets that Cas is used to sharing her space and Dr. Banner is definitely not a baby demigod around to mess with her stuff. There’s no need to chase him off with a pointy object….not that she would because of the Other Guy.

 _“I-I’m not going to interfere with your work, Dr. Stark.”_ Has Cas mentioned that she likes Dr. Banner? He’s a seriously alright dude and wicked smart too.

“Dr. Banner, I would be really excited if you looked over some of the stuff I’ve played around with. Fresh perspectives are important and dad’s not as interested in the squishy stuff as you are.” 

_“Squishy is messy. Just ask Valdez about what he cleaned out of the Mark VII’s flaps.”_ She’ll pass on that once in a lifetime opportunity, thanks.

It would be kind of rude for her to ignore Dr. Banner when he’s just arrived, “I’ll be over in a few hours so leave my things alone until then.”

~~~

The news stories started almost immediately after the fighting started but that was just the live coverage of the conflict. This was important because those brave (or moronic) newscasters kept the world at least a bit aware of what was going on. It was these individuals that actually revealed the existence of demigods from their spots on the periphery of the fighting (after said demigods dragged them away). Those stories were purely reactionary and obviously everyone cheered for the people protecting them.

But it only took a few days for the more analytical stories to begin coming out.

_MSNBC: Aftermath: The World Responds to Alien Attack_

There are shots of people celebrating in the streets with the caption _New Yorkers Celebrate Victory._ There are demigods visible in many of these particular clips. The celebrations are filled with scattered shots of thank yous and greetings exchanged with the demigods old enough to approach. They aren’t saying much about themselves beyond names and where they're from if they feel safe doing it.

It’s not just the demigods. The mob loves the Avengers too. They’re dressing up and carrying signs in celebration of their heroes. They thanked her father with a parade of hand painted banners depicting Iron Man and she knows because she watched it from a roof with him.

Cas wonders if this is what Odysseus and the other heroes felt like back in the day. The thanks and the cheering is really nice and exactly the sort of thing she wouldn’t mind getting used to….actually, that’s the pride talking and she’ll keep and eye on that.

The others too. It’s overwhelming now but they shouldn't be getting used to this.

After all, _New York Senator Questions Heroes_ ran almost immediately after the celebrations started and he has an easy to follow point, _“These so called heroes have to be held responsible for the destruction done to this city. This was their fight. Where are they now?”_

They are not responsible for the destruction that was the Chitauri and Loki but the public can’t get Loki whereas the Avengers and the demigods are in fact on Earth. It’s a very easy blame game that could go either way or rather it could’ve but there’s an overwhelming public support base right now. And ‘this was their fight?’ Buddy, this is their home. It was everyone’s fight.

And that was just round one….

She sighs from her spot in front of the TV seated with the crew of the Argo II (plus Calypso) fanned out around her apartment.

Tomorrow the eight of them will be formally introducing themselves to the world….again in Cas’s case. It’s not exciting.


	10. In Which Cas Just Misses the Bulls-eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guys I think we're all mature enough in here that I won't need to put trigger warnings in every chapter or some such thing but we all know that Tony Stark deals with....a lot mentally in the months following the Avengers. The fact that he's always facing these topics and overcoming them is the reason why he's my favorite character in the MCU.
> 
> There's a lot of stories that do a lot of justice to fairly presenting PTSD and I will also be doing my best to respect that and be as accurate as possible. However, I have personal experience being the family member of the person with a mental condition and being uncertain and awkward about how to treat it. (THIS PERSON IS OKAY NOW IN MY LIFE AND OUR RELATIONSHIP IS NOW GOOD <3) That being said, Cas isn't going to understand everything about how to see what's happening with her father or how to help.
> 
> Realistically, she's his daughter so it's not her job to either. Being there is enough (took me a while to learn that one).
> 
> This is going to be a bit of a theme present in the background of the chapters and floating around. I bring this up now because the foundation is being laid and I don't want to do this more than once.
> 
> To the person that thinks 'Cas should get this right away because she's seen some shit.' I say this. It is very different to have your own struggles or to see and help your peers through their struggles than it is to look at a parent or someone you emulate go through them. Trust me, I know that from experience.
> 
> "AND THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT"

This is awkward. Really, really awkward. And it’s only the morning.

“So Hel-”

“Stop talking.” 

Cas’s mouth shuts with a click and she goes back to feeling like a specimen on a microscope stage. It takes another seven minutes of stare off before Dr. Helen Cho leans back with a sigh, “You’re a demigod.” Rather than say anything Cas just nods along in agreement, “And was I going to be informed of this?”

“Yes.” Eventually….probably after a year or two.

“That’s something at least,” She quickly passes a hand over her face, “Stop making that face at me.”

“I’m not making a face,” But if it’s working….

“You are. It’s sad and ineffective,” So it’s not working, “Fine, but I’m your new doctor.”

What? She’s very confused.

This is a very strange thought for Cas to have while seated at one of her personal lab benches, “I think I missed something.” She needs Helen to back up a smidge.

“I’m still working with you,” Oh thank the gods, “But since you’re pretty much a new species-”

“I’m not though, totally human right here….plus extra.”

“I’ll be the one to confirm any physiological differences between you and a baseline homo sapien-”

“I’ve mostly done that already.” Helen continues to talk over her.

“Because what you’ve done so far is competent for a high school student but it needs refinement” Wow. “And you need a third party to verify your findings anyway.” Helen is a force of nature and it’s not surprising given the difficulties that come with growing up in South Korea. Now that is a hard culture to be successful in. Their standards are through the roof. 

Cas sort of just sits there waiting for the other shoe to drop but nothing else happens, “So you’re staying and you want to be my physician?” Cas has never technically been to a doctor before. She has vaccines and stuff but she always just goes to the Apollo cabin or takes some ambrosia, “We’re still going to do awesome science together, right?”

“You’re the one that reached out to me about binding tissues to a synthetic in order to induce guided healing.” Sure, but that doesn’t mean much.

“That idea was entirely based on your research for enhancing cellular regeneration in trauma victims. I just need a cytologist to fact check me.” Also, Cas really wants an actual science friend. Helen is older than her by a solid margin but they’re close enough.

“I’ll be doing more than fact checking. If you say the base is my work then whatever we make goes to Seol first.” Uh….huh. Helen came to fight but Cas doesn’t get to do that here.

“Sorry,” Cas grins back, “You’ll have to take that up with the Queen. She’s stingy with my intellectual property.”

“Believe me,” Cas does, “We will be renegotiating my contract because I want at the other demigods too.” Why are the mortal women in Cas’s life so scary?

“I mean, we can probably work something out,” Sadly life threw her a few curve balls recently, “I’m going to be a bit busy for a while so my available research time is cut,” Which sucks because Helen is here for only weeks at a time before she flies back to South Korea but there are things that need doing.

Like, but not limited to: Being an advocate for demigods, Coordinating with FEMA because they’re here now, and Helping the Maria Stark Foundation get started on repairs. She’d love to give some of this to demigods that she’s so sure are capable but by mortal standards they’re not qualified. They’re not ‘old enough’ nor do they have any certifications or documentation to suggest that they’re able to do anything.

It sucks but this goes into the reason why Cas has three unnecessary PhDs. One is technically enough to say that you’re an uber smart person capable of conducting and documenting your own research but at the time….well Cas was a teenage girl. That was already counting against her and put that with her short expected life span, she needed clout fast to get grants and open doors. It made her marketable and worth investing in. Then the wars rendered all of this irrelevant anyway and she became Cassandra Stark so now if there’s no door she can make one.

She does have fond memories of defending her theses against the committees even if they’re technically formalities. But this is another brain tangent brought on by the shock of Dr. Helen Cho not running away screaming from her.

“Then we should get started now,” Helen says with a smile that should be reassuring but isn’t, “I know for a fact that there’s a medical lab two floors down. I’m sure it has everything I need to cover the basics.”

Meep.

“Uhhh….I need to check with my insurance. Are you a registered in-network provider?” If she’s smart she can get out of this, “And I’m not even fasting. I’m never fasting. That’s an impossibility,” That’s not technically true but she really doesn’t like feeling hungry, “So I guess you can’t get any kind of physical done on me.” 

“Why not?” And by the curiosity she has only made this worse for herself, “Wait, what’s your BMR?”

Eh, too late now, “Way higher than yours,” Actually, Helen is a friend, “Mine’s higher than all of the demigods actually but I’ve never formally calculated it.” It’s a highly subjective value so it's more useful in comparison to other people in the same class as her. There’s no one in the same class as her so it’s pointless. Instead she just tries to maintain a consistent caloric intake and that’s worked for her….Jarvis helps.

Then the rest of what was supposed to be ‘not work’ turns into science (so does it even count?) and Helen proved to be a vampire because there’s no way she needed that many tubes of blood from Cas.

“I thought you were a member of a hero race. Stop squirming.”

“Be grateful I’m only squirming. Usually when someone tries to stab me I stab back.” She’s just been released from the torture chair when she gets pinged for the next in a long line of duties for today.

_ “Ms. Stark, it’s nearly eleven.” _ Which means it’s time for Cas to go see the Queen.

“This has been really so much fun,” Cas is already halfway across the lab in retreat to the nearest elevator, “But I’ve got grown up stuff to do. So...bye.”

“Send me the rest of your medical information!” Helen Cho is awesome so Cas gives Jarvis permission to do just that.

~~~

When she enters Pepper’s office, Cas doesn’t hesitate to thank her savior, “Ms. Potts, you are a hero. I think Helen was going to try and take my spinal fluid next. She took enough blood.” She makes herself comfortable in one of the chairs and waits for Pepper to finish up on her computer.

When she finishes sending off whatever that was she turns to Cas and gives the ‘I’m not impressed look’ but Cas told no lie so she only shrugs, “I’m glad that Dr. Cho is settling in well,” Well enough to bully Cas, “But I have something I want to run by you.” Pepper picks up a hologram roll and opens in on the desk. When it lights up Cas sucks in a breath because that is a lot more than just repairs and minor changes, “Tony had some new ideas for the tower following the….incident.” Incident seems like an understatement but she lets it go. Pepper has been a rock for her recently so she’s not about to pass judgement on how she’s processing ETs less adorable cousins.

Her father already turned down Annabeth’s offer to flip through the schematics. So Cas is ignorant as she sifts through her father's plans for a fully equipped medical bay adjacent to a landing platform that would accommodate a quinjet. It’s a complete revamp of the penthouse and the top eight floors that’s even going to have living quarters and common areas. What?

And then she sees the name: Avengers Tower.

Shit. That wormhole messed with her father more than she thought. This is another of his go big or go home responses.

“Has this been implemented yet?” If her father has already hired contractors then there isn’t much she can do.

“No, he’s still refining but he gave me this yesterday.” Okay, so that means he’s had this in his head for over a week but worked on redesigning the tower she had input on originally without her. And he’s renamed it.

Her eyes drift back to the new name, “Hey Jarvis, how old is this file?”

_ “It was created two days after the Chitauri Invasion.” _ And that tells her all that she needs to know.

“I think I know why he’s doing this.” And why he’s cut her out of it. There’s very few people on the planet that would maneuver with the intent to keep her out of the line of fire and her father is one of them.

Pepper brings a hand up and starts fiddling with the top of the virtual Avengers Tower, “I’m glad one of us does. This came out of nowhere. Especially with everything we already have to do. The approval for the Damage Control program only just came through.” Yeah, that’s an important one. Cas isn’t overly concerned with space germs but unknown substances with unknown shelf lives should be handled with care and stored until they can be safely studied and disposed of.

Cas sits back and thinks about how to approach this one, “Has dad said anything about what he saw in the wormhole?” She’s under no illusions of her position in her little mortal family. Her father is never going to confide in her about his issues. He may reciprocate something if she brings something to the table but he’s her father so he’s never going to come to her with his problems.

Pepper only purses her lips and shakes her head, “Tony has almost never spoken to me about what he’s done as Iron Man.” Right, there’s also the general issue that her father isn’t much of a sharer in general which is fine. If it works for him.

“Generally speaking….” No, that’s not a good start, “I can’t pretend to know dad as well as you do but I think we have this in common.”

Pepper doesn’t seem to agree, “Cassie, I think you’re the only person on the same wavelength as your father.” That could be a compliment or insult depending on the day.

Well, here she goes, “When something happens it’s important to identify what could have gone better and then fix it so that it’s not exploitable next time.” Like when Cas immediately went to the drawing board after Gaea fell to guarantee nothing that she did would work ever again. For example, if the Greeks and Romans are friends then no one can divide the gods. Also, good communication really messed with the zombies’ plans the very next year.

The brilliant Queen immediately follows along, “And the problem this time? Because the Avengers and the demigods handled everything very well according to the analyses.”

Given what they had to work with that is true but, “The portal never should have been allowed to open. It’s a response time issue. Shield had to gather the Avengers from across the planet. It would’ve saved hours if there was a team at the ready immediately.” They could’ve tracked the Cube sooner and possibly found it hours before Dr. Selvig finished the portal device.

“That’s-” Pepper looks surprised, “That’s just guesswork. You can’t know that for certain.”

Cas nods in agreement, “Technically, you’re right but in an emergency the response time needs to be immediate and it wasn’t here.” She looks back at the proposed building, “Problem is….is this a good team to back?”

“They seemed to get the job done just fine….same with the demigods. I mean there are just so many and they worked so well together.” 

“We’re not really comparable because demigods practice and mess around together,” Sort of, “I don’t know every single one of them but I know what to expect because I know what they’re learning-mostly-and I know the people that were put in charge.” This isn’t relevant, “There was a lot of friction between the Avengers. It’s a bunch of alphas and Dr. Banner who didn’t want to be there anyway.”

“You don’t think this,” Pepper gestures to the hologram in question once more, “Is a good idea.”

Honest answer? “I think it looks like dad’s trying to build a superhero clubhouse so that we’re ready for round two.” Like some weird 70s cohabitation sitcom. Funny at times but mostly unrealistic.

That may have been a little bit too much in one go because Pepper abruptly pales, “You think they’re coming back.”

Cas reaches across the desk for Pepper’s hand, “It’s possible. It’s something that I’ve talked about with the demigods but we can’t prove anything so the military wasn’t all that interested in what we had to say.” She squeezes Pepper’s hand before continuing “The Chitauri came here with larger numbers to get the Tesseract. They not only failed to get it but they also lost their equally powerful glow stick. We won this time because we took them by surprise. That won’t work twice.” Also….Call Cas crazy but it feels like a poor investment to bet the Scepter on the Tesseract. It was a long shot plan and whoever okayed it would have gotten only one thing out of it….Feels weird to think about. High risk with high reward maybe? But still unnecessary given the option to cut and run with the Tesseract. And then why toss an unnecessary middle man(Loki) in there?

Pepper sighs, “You know, I nearly quit when Tony first started going out as Iron Man. At first, it was just about fixing his mistakes but then you came in with monsters and magic.” Cas tries to hold back a flinch, “It’s not your fault but now there’s aliens and portals. Why is this his job? Why is it yours?”

“I’m a demigod, Pepper. It’s my job to fight the monsters,” She’s never getting away from that apparently so she gives the Queen a bitter smile, “But dad’s even better because he volunteered. He can do it so he’s going to.”

“No, Cas, it’s not your job,” Pepper pulls her hand away, “You have amazing abilities but you can do more than just hit things.” Hit things? “Wasn’t the whole point of you coming to Tony in the first place so that the demigods wouldn’t have to fight anymore?”

“In a way, the point was to make it safer but come on Pepper, you want us to sit back and watch it happen? To wait for another attack?” There’s no need to sugar coat this for Pepper but Cas wishes that there was better news, “Thor said Shield told the universe we were ready for war and a few hours later someone tested us. We passed but we can do better.” And if her father has elected himself chief defender from outer space haters then Cas will back him along with any demigods that are willing to to help.

Pepper doesn’t look happy but she’s leaning closer to resigned now, “...superhero clubhouse…”

“Yeah,” She wrinkles her nose, “I’m not sold on that one. If Rhodey joined that would be cool but I think the other Avengers are a little too….point and shoot for planning a defense.” That’s not entirely true, “Dr. Banner could help. He did work with us to track the Tesseract but that’s why I want to keep Dr. Selvig and get Dr. Foster with us. It’s not just because I want more smart people to talk to.” But that is a bonus. There weren’t many people that Cas could talk to while growing up that were interested in discovery and learning. Luke listened but a lot went over his head, same with Silena, and Charlie and Annabeth preferred more practical pursuits.

This makes Pepper cover her face and groan, “What is with you two?” Huh? “First Tony decided the words ‘privatize world peace’ were a good idea and now you say we should privatize aerospace defense.”

She hadn’t thought about it that way before, “Usually when someone has a hypothesis they have to test it before anyone will take it seriously. There’s a lack of evidence to the contrary at the moment so the world seems content to say we won but I’d rather keep my eyes open. However, I don’t know much about astrophysics other than what I binged with dad. Getting people who know what they're doing to advise and even lead in certain areas is a must here.”

“You really plan ahead,” Cas nods along with Pepper, “Sometimes I forget that you know what you’re doing. I wish Tony would ask for help like this.” To be fair, Cas never would have considered coming to mortals for help before Santa Barbara.

Cas laughs in the face of Pepper’s exasperation, “I’ve had my limitations beaten into me, Pepper.” Literally, “But dad,”....this might have done that, “This whole thing with the aliens in combination with introducing an enhanced race is a lot but he doesn’t ask for help, does he?”

“No, your father isn’t much of a team player.” That’s circumstantial but he does prefer to do the dangerous things on his own.

She can’t force him to let her help but that doesn’t mean that she can’t do things her own way, “So….will you help me get Dr. Foster on staff?”

“If it means not leaving the future of the world in Tony’s and your hands, fine.” Ha. Pepper adapts fast, “But you need to take some more of the workload for SI in return.” Hmmmm…

“That’s fine. I wanted to go to London anyway.”

“Uh,” She gives Cas a fake laugh and shakes her head, “No, you are stateside until the issue of your existence is resolved.”

That’s harsh, “Gees Pepper, tell me how you really feel about me.”

“You’re a headache,” That’s probably accurate. 

~~~

Their meeting is more or less adjourned in favor of a working lunch where Cas is reading through legal documents regarding her case using a cheat sheet for the jargon she doesn’t know via Jarvis. She occasionally has a more in depth question that Pepper is more than happy to explain to her.

There’s also things that require her approval (?), yeah, that was a strange development but she’s not boots on the ground anymore because once again Cas is more useful in the back than actually helping directly. Fine, she gets it but she’d rather dig out cars and Chitauri tech than plan how to address the fears of supersoldier children (wtf America, they existed first, not Dr. Erskine). Jarvis said that’s a statistical minority though and 73% of the internet active populace are in favor of their existence which is such a comforting way to phrase that statement. This of course started happening after ‘someone’ posted that application video she put together years ago(She doesn’t know whether or not she should thank or strangle this person when she finds them).

The world got subjected to her gods awful English accent but they also got to see a bunch of enhanced kids at play, learning, and goofing off. And the world (mostly) came to the same conclusion as her father, that they’re just kids. Sort of, that clip of her and Charlie is almost six years old….she’s going to be twenty three soon…shit.

Moving on. Really, she just needs to kill time until she’s subjected to more torture in the form of cameras and a press conference.

Cas was just getting a good productive streak going despite how mind numbingly boring all of this is so of course that’s a perfect time for her father to swan into the room.

“Were your ears ringing?” Cas says as he plops himself down in Pepper’s space. She averts her eyes as they go through the typical greeting before he deigns to answer her.

“No, but I assume you were talking about me,” He looks between them as if he’s only just realized what that would mean for him, “It had better be about how amazing I am.”

The timing of that one is perfect because she’d just taken a drink of water and proceeds to choke on it. While she’s struggling for air and trying not to laugh Pepper answers, “Amazing? You mean like your nonexistent sleep schedule and the third canceled date night.”

“Damn, old man, that really is amazing.” The Queen hasn’t killed him yet.

“Mute,” And he waves her off like she’s a bot, “The second was not my fault-”

“And who’s fault was it?” Pepper cuts him off like a boss before he can get any traction.

“You know who’s fault it was. I told you that night.”

“You don’t remember, do you?”

He hesitates, “Major….Something. No wait...Yeah, it was Major Something and we missed out on date night because of him.”

“Mhmm…” Cas enjoys watching Pepper pretend to be annoyed with her father as they go back and forth. Then she returns to her work to give the illusion of privacy as they continue to bicker.

“How about...date night tonight?” And queue the grand gesture, “Come on, we’ll take the jet. Where do you want to go?”

“How about here?” Cas catches sight of Pepper running a hand though her father’s hair from the corner of her eye, “Nice dinner and early night?” It’s funny but Cas is used to them slipping into their own world and forgetting when she’s around.

But sometimes the moment’s got to end, “Am I still muted? Because this isn’t where I’d want to be a fly on the wall.” 

Her father’s head drops to Pepper’s shoulder because yeah, she’s still muted but Pepper answers her, “You’re never muted, Cassie. I don’t think you’re capable of it.” There’s a beat but then her father starts to laugh while Cas gapes at Pepper, “I stand corrected.” Damn, Pepper.

She’d keep grasping at straws in an attempt to redeem herself but her phone starts ringing on the table. This is odd for two reasons. One, Jarvis didn’t reroute the call and take a message even though she’s on emergencies only. Two, Jarvis kept the call to her device which would only happen if it was sensitive information. Yay, she’s so excited for the next problem because Piper is calling her again.

“Hey Pipes, please have good news for once.” It’s unlikely. Piper never calls unless it’s important.

_ “I have news that can go either way-” _

“Joy.”

_ “So we figured that it would be best from me and not Annabeth because she’s your little sister,” _ Who’s this we?

“You’re younger than Annabeth.”

_ “And because I’m your best friend.”  _ That’s a good point. Cas and Piper have grown the closest in the last couple of years.

She brings one hand up to massage her forehead because Cas just knows this is going to be worth a migraine, “Hit me with it, McLean.”

_ “We’ve been summoned to Mt. Olympus about….well, everything that’s been happening.” _

Shit. She’s tempted for a moment to shout ‘I don’t wanna’ then throw her phone at the nearest wall but that would solve absolutely nothing, “I knew this was going to be a migraine call. Okay, great, when are we expected to meet with the Council.” 

There’s only one group that Cas ever refers to as the Council so Pepper and her father are immediately on edge,  _ “We’ve been given a few days before we have to be there.” _

“This isn’t a royal we, right?” Because if it’s just Cas going to see the gods she may just keel over and die now, “The whole friend group is invited to face judgement too?” There are two sets of eyes burning into the side of her face right now that Cas is deliberately ignoring.

_ “Yep,”  _ Oh, thank the gods. Literally in this instance,  _ “Leo wanted to tell you at the press conference but we outvoted him.” _

He would. Leo has a weird sense of humor but then again they all do and Cas should just be grateful that his call was overturned, “How considerate.” It’s just one more thing. She can add one more thing to the list easily and it isn’t even something she needs to worry about because Cas can trust the others to behave in front of the gods….right? They’re grown up now. Mature and responsible adults.

They’re going to be smited….All eight of them in one room before the gods. Zeus and Ares still hate Percy. Hera still has it out for Annabeth. Piper still has feelings about her mother. And Jason is Jason. Hazel isn’t supposed to be alive and neither is Leo technically so they’re on thin ice. Frank is in the green(except for Athena who hates Romans) and so is Cas….Maybe? Her childhood is still subject to controversy because some of the gods think her mother and Athena interfered too much granting her an unfair advantage.

Yeah, she felt like breaking many things when Chiron told her what Mr. D had relayed to him. And she did. Cas took a mallet down into the garage/workshop level of Stark Tower and went to town on the 1965 Ford Thunderbird she’d been restoring. Was it the car’s fault? No. Did she feel bad after? Yes. But it felt damn good when the rear window shattered under her swing. Her father showed up and tried to give her shit for spraying glass everywhere then he saw her face and gave her goggles instead.

He then waited, got the latest Olympian gossip out of her, had Jarvis place an order for replacement parts and form a queue to machine what he couldn’t order, and joined her in smashing the chassis up.

Point is Hermes likes her and so does Apollo(she thinks…). Athena thinks she’s useful and Poseidon doesn’t hate her because of all the effort she put into Percy’s training but he doesn’t favor her either. In Zeus’s eyes Cas is evidence of his subjects going behind his back which is a very bad place for her to be but she saved Jason’s life in Santa Barbara so she may get a pass. The other’s have no reason to look at Cas as anything other than a demigod that isn’t one of theirs that got what they consider ‘preferential treatment.’ Fuck that.

It’s easy to see why this would be stressful for her.

_ “We’ll see you at the press conference, Strategos. By the way, Annabeth and I got everyone to dress like normal people. No weapons or armor. Just like grownups.”  _ That drags a huffed laugh out of her.

“Thanks for your efforts. I love you, Princess.” She’s glad that Frank and Hazel aren’t about to go full Praetores on the reporters.

_ “I know and the tragedy is that I’m ambivalent towards you.” _ She hangs up after that. Cas briefly considers pretending that this conversation never happened and if it was just her father she may have but Pepper is here too.

“I’m not even going to try and act like you two haven’t figured out the point of that call.” Cas will use every opportunity to irritate her father but it’s a life goal to not stress out Pepper. Or at least minimize it because Cas’s very existence causes constant stress to the people in her life.

Pepper is the first to ask a question, “Is this a good thing?”

Her father answers, “We all know the Olympians will flip from praising the punishing in point two seconds.” She’s spoken about this with her father but...that sounds like the voice of experience rather than secondhand advice.

Although…, “I never asked,” Because he’d tell her if it was important, “But what did Hermes say to you after I left?”

“That guy is hard to keep up with,” Her father called Hermes, one of his patrons, ‘that guy.’ Wow, “We got some kudos for our efforts and he thanked us for watching out for his kids of which there are many,” He sits back and thinks some more, “Let’s see, you already know what he said to Thor,” She nods because that was very interesting indeed, “And then he threatened the spies.”

Wait, “What?”

“More like Shield but he turned a pair of master assassins into his couriers.”

No, no, please, back up, “But what exactly did he say. Phrasing is important.” Word order, context, and inflection are really important to figuring out what it is that the gods are trying to say.

“It was actually really cryptic and weird-worse than Fury-”

“Dad!” He’s doing this on purpose. Malaka.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. He told them to report to all of their higher ups verbatim that they were to ‘keep their many heads and hands away from their children’ or else wrath and something something Underworld.” What in Hades is that supposed to mean?

Okay, that’s sort of good news, “Well, it’s nice to hear that Olympus is keeping an eye out for us.” That was weirdly poetic for Hermes though because that sounds more like something Apollo would say. ‘Many head and hands’ is really strange but maybe it refers to the WSC which Cas appreciates because she doesn’t like them. She hadn’t been expecting any kind of support from the gods but she’ll take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this one is like half the length of the previous chapter lol.
> 
> To the people who were waiting for the gods to actually do something helpful for their kids. This is for you.


	11. Argonauts 2.0 is a Much Cooler Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the last time I'm ever going to do some sort of media/press thing directly. I think I'll leave to mentioning and such things. I don't like writing them.
> 
> Some update for you guys:
> 
> I'm currently on chapter 17 on this fic but I've hit a little bit of a writers block but I'm going to keep trying to push through (IM3 is hard to rewrite).
> 
> I'm employed again so my available writing time may go down.
> 
> ALSO! Two questions.
> 
> If I ever posted some stuff regarding what Cas got up to in Camp Half-Blood as a teen would you be interested? They'd be like Cas, Luke, Silena, Charlie and maybe little Annabeth.
> 
> Two, I've take the opportunity to use IM3 to write Cas close to a mental limit and I'm wondering if anyone can tell me at what point aggression and book violence hits M rating instead of T. I don't think it will be that bad but I'm weird.

They’re hiding. Well, not really hiding but they’re basically hiding away from the pop up stage out front.. They’re technically waiting to go say hello to the people outside with the quiet support of their mortal family members...Those of them that have mortal family members. (That means Mrs. Jackson is here! With the potato.) Obviously that’s a bit limited in their particular group but they managed to keep Tristan McLean sane this time. It’s amazing what happens when someone is informed of life changing news in a controlled environment. The guy had a few drinks according to her father and Mr. Chase but he slept it off….it’s like a mortal family support group and it’s concerning because they don’t share what they talk about.

She’s chosen to let it go because Pepper is friends with Mrs. Jackson so it’s too late to separate it. The whole thing makes sense anyway. Cas built a system to make the world a little safer for demigods so it follows that something like that would happen too.

Originally, it was supposed to be just the eight of them standing for themselves with their families waiting in the wings but Pepper and her father said it was important that he goes first…? Whatever, she trusts them and it helps with the whole point of this.

What is the point of parading themselves like show animals?

Easy. They’re being loud and visible.

It serves two purposes. One is to make up for the literal centuries of hiding their existence(even though it’s the mortals’ fault) by being open and talking. The second is to make themselves seen. Remember how Cas dove under the umbrella of being Cassandra Stark? It’s harder to make people disappear when everyone is watching them.

It’s a hit to the group’s privacy but there’s a certain amount of safety in a judgmental spotlight.

She’s not particularly concerned having grown used to strange people asking questions that really shouldn’t matter but they want to know anyway. At least now she doesn’t have to creatively lie without telling too damning of a lie. Well, there are no plans to talk about the more...extensive quests, maybe some other time once the world has calmed down a bit.

That’s why Cas is calmly leaning against the wall with a travel mug of what would barely qualify as a cappuccino. The milk to espresso ratio is very much in favor of the espresso but she needs it because falling asleep on stage wouldn’t be a good look for her.

“Could you at least pretend to be nervous, Cas?” Percy is looking distinctly uncomfortable but he’s never been the guy that enjoyed the spotlight(Which is funny since he once convinced the country that he was kidnapped by a terrorist….will the mob remember him and go digging into what really happened? Eh….later problems.). It makes him really brave for doing this, not that Cas will tell him that.

“Ah,” She says without any sincerity, “Save me from the scary reporters.” She goes back to her new Instagram account. It’s not something that she’s sure about yet but the filters are entertaining. It definitely keeps baby demigods entertained when the adults need a break.

“Our General is used to being famous by now,” Leo struts over and wraps an arm around her neck, “Look at her. Like she’s red carpet ready.” Cas ignores him other than adjusting his arm to protect her hair. All of them are dressed to look older than they are but Cas has the highest expectations placed on her. It’s funny. The media has been waiting for her self-destructive episode to prove that she’s Tony Stark’s daughter. They didn’t see this one coming.

“No,” Piper says from her spot on the opposite wall against Jason, “More like boring people meeting. Suits and stuff. Now her twenty second birthday dress….that was red carpet worthy.” She pauses to think, “What happened to that one? I actually liked it.” Which is saying something since it’s Piper.

“Car accident,” Cas replies without looking up and there’s a chorus of ‘right’ and ‘oh, yeah.’ It’s a bit of a blip for her as well.

“Relax, Seaweed Brain. You don’t even have to use that empty head of yours. Just smile and someone will talk for you.” Ah, the young love between Annabeth and Percy is ever burning bright.

“Maybe you should do that all the time, Annabeth,” Jason says, “His mouth is what gets everyone into trouble half the time.” Cas doesn’t bother to hold in her laugh because that is so true. If something is trying to kill them and Percy opens his mouth the aggression just shoots straight up.

“Bam! Lightning Man with the burn. I didn’t know you had it in you, Jason.” Leo wipes an imaginary tear, “You must have had a brilliant teacher.”

“In being a nuisance,” She mutters and Leo jumps away in offense. He’s obviously doing his part to ease the tension which is interesting because this group crossed the ocean to fight Gaea. Just goes to show how intimidating it is to be in the public eye.

“As if you’re any better, Cassie.” Leo can do so much better than that.

“I don’t have to be,” She points at Percy, “Look at him. Give him two seconds and he makes fun of himself.”

It takes a second for that click before Percy lets out an indignant, “Hey!”

“Case and point,” Everyone gets a small laugh out of that one including Percy after he receives a bit of love from Annabeth. Cuties.

“Why are we making fun of Percy today?” Hazel asks and that’s a very good question but Jason started it so she doesn’t need to answer.

Leo does though, “Because it’s Tuesday.” Cas could’ve sworn it was Wednesday, “If it was Thursday we’d be going after Frank.” Frank holds his hands up in alarm at being called out from his quiet spot by Hazel. Cas is fairly certain he’s doing Roman things right now so she was going to leave him alone until they needed him.

Hazel takes him seriously which is even better given that she’s known him for years now, “Do we all have a day of the week?”

“Yes,” Leo says with absolute sincerity, “I am Saturday because it’s the best day.”

“There’s eight of us, Leo. I’m not sharing my day.” Annabeth says like anyone’s dumb enough to target her for an entire day.

“I don’t have one,” Cas cuts in, “My life is already a cosmic joke.” It is. It really really is.

Leo nods like it’s some kind of absolute truth, “Everyday is a good day to actively annoy the General.” She puts her phone away so that she can enjoy talking with all of them before they face the music together. They have another twenty minutes to kill before anything is supposed to start so they make the most of it as only a group of 17-22 year olds can. The four ladies are in the middle of shoving Leo out of the picture they’re trying to take together when Pepper and Happy come to get them.

“Alright Heroes, show time.” Pepper says with a smile on her face before waving them forward.

“Yeah, and try not to act like delinquents for a few minutes.” She has one pillow fort war in front of the guy….

Doesn’t mean that she can’t deflect though, “That means you can leave, Katara.” They’ve already established it’s open season on Percy right now.

“Maybe I should. No love today,” From the way he tugs Annabeth closer they all know he’s joking.

As they’re walking Cas slips on her sunglasses because she forgot exactly once during an event and saw spots for what felt like hours, “I have a spare-” She doesn’t even get to finish before Piper takes them, “Okay, then…”

“Dad’s movie premiere,” Ah, that makes sense, “I’m keeping these by the way.” Cas just waves her off. She doesn’t care.

They agreed on seating arrangements beforehand and it’s not the order that Cas wanted. Originally, she wanted to be seated next to Leo but they were vetoed and separated (it’s for the best, really) so instead Cas was planted between Piper and Annabeth. The Romans are to Piper’s left with the rest of the Greeks to Cas’s right. Someone could claim a miracle because no one embarrasses themselves getting to said seats which is amazing. With all of them in one place Cas is just waiting for the spontaneous and unplanned event to occur. But none of her shock is visible as she greets her father who’s already standing at the ready like the consummate showman that he is.

“Looking good,” He says mid camera hug.

She pulls back first, “I hope so. Did something happen? Jarvis stopped giving me updates.”

He dismisses her concerns, “Nothing bad. Go sit and enjoy the show.”

Rather than voice her confusion she sits and waits for her father to command the attention of the masses. Beside her Annabeth whispers, “Everything’s okay?” But she just nods her head and waits for her father to start.

Hopefully he doesn’t disappoint, “Well, I think we can all agree that Cassie over there has beaten me for the wildest headline.” Cas sighs, “ _ Member of Secret Hero Society _ is what I think it was.”

“Leader! It said ‘Leader,’ not member, Mr. Stark.” Cas leans forward and glares at Leo for that comment but he’s unrepentant.

“That’s right! Thank you, Mr. Valdez.” Don’t talk again, Mr. Valdez, “That’s not strictly accurate though since they’re a highly democratic group of young people,” She sighs again, “But that’s not why I’m here. This isn’t about me, this is about them and their almost unbelievable story. It starts back in August 2010 when some punk kid I’d never heard of decided my cyber security wasn’t impressive and requested to meet with me.” Everyone knows that her father is talking about her but she doesn’t shy away from the attention like she once might have. Cas holds her head high while her father summarizes their first meeting.

“This too smart for her own good kid showed up at my home with a centaur in tow to ask for my help. She didn’t do the easy thing and demand money for being my child. No, she convinced me that gods and monsters exist and asked for help finding a way for demigods like these guys behind me to live their lives in relative safety. Because the threat of being attacked for what they are is very real to them. Monsters like what they only recently defended this city from are a reality for them all the time... All the time.” He repeats with a shake of his head.

“And she asked for help making a few phones and computers that she promised to pay me for. Like I need it.” Cas can feel the eye roll he just gave the crowd, “These kids with amazing gifts wanted to be a bunch of Clark Kents. Go to school, grow up, get normal careers and maybe one day come forward and identify themselves. I can’t imagine what I would have done growing up with the abilities that these guys have but they’re all far more responsible with them than I, than any of us, could ever be.” Cas doesn’t imagine that was a particularly helpful sentence, “Then she drops her identity in front of me in the most inconvenient way that December,” No one outside of their circle knows about the palladium. Well, them and Shield, “Which is how we got to Spring 2011.” He should be wrapping up and starting the Q&A soon.

“Did anyone see that video of demigods at play? It just recently turned up online. Cassie’s in it actually,” No….he wouldn’t, “Actually, can we just play that clip. Real fast. Hold on.” He would. He definitely would. And so it passes, before gods and men, that Tony Stark fulfilled his duties as a father by embarrassing his daughter in public and showing a clip of Cas playing Jedi with Charlie Beckendorf. She sighs once more and shakes her head after hearing her terrible Obi-Wan impersonation and she’s endlessly grateful when it’s over. It’s not like the others won’t tease her about this until the end of forever.

Thanks, old man.

“See that kid up there?” He rewinds it maybe a minute to when Charlie is about to jump her, “Not mine, the other strapping looking young man right there,” What is her father doing? The others are murmuring around her not following what’s happening any more than she is, “His name is Charles Beckendorf and I owe him everything,” Cas stiffens in her seat and Annabeth’s hand shoots out to grab hers, “In 2009 he saved Cassandra’s life and you’ll notice that he’s not here today for me to thank in front of all of you,” Where is this going? “And that is because in 2009 he died saving my daughter’s life while fighting monsters we thought were imaginary.”

Cas looks off stage at Pepper for some kind of signal that this is supposed to be happening right now because this isn’t what they agreed to, “Charles Beckendorf was twenty years old and he wanted to be a mechanical engineer. He also helped save this city but no one here knew that. I can’t thank him but I can make sure that he’s remembered. That being said, Stark Industries has recently established a new charity fund aptly named the Charles Beckendorf Foundation,” She’s gaping like a godsdamned idiot and Annabeth tightens her grip on her hand. This is…“Like those old stories you half remember from history class, most of these kids have it difficult. The purpose of the Charles Beckendorf Foundation is to provide financial support to demigods seeking higher education but also legal support if they aren’t in a safe place.” This is everything.

She manages to stay in her seat while her father wraps it up and does what he originally said he was there for but the moment he’s done she’s up and across the stage to hug him, “Thank you, that was….wow.”

“Figured, it’s either that or you’re attacking me,” He says back.

Cas takes a step back to glare at him, “Malaka, trying to make me sad on stage is not alright.” It’s an amazing tribute to Charlie and a program like this is something that she was already planning on doing but to see it done by her father….

He does her the solid of making sure she hasn’t spontaneously become a raccoon, not that he could do much at this point if that were the case, “You can blame Pepper for that,” Her eyes dart to Pepper’s off stage to find the woman in question still smiling.

….well, if he’s allowed to embarrass her in public, “I swear if you don’t marry her one day then I’m telling the world that you’re actually a marshmallow.” He is. It’s a toasted marshmallow but her father is a marshmallow.

But rather than react to her admittedly weak jab he says, “That is called slander and that’s illegal,” She rolls her eyes at his retreating figure, “Don’t screw up or I’m selling all your things.” Oh please.

Cas returns to her seat where a few handheld mics have been distributed for them to share. These people have a lot of faith in their abilities to not be awkward. She’d like to say that she paid attention during the introductions but other than waving the mic on with a, “I’m pretty sure everyone here knows who I am.” That’s her only contribution to the start of the meet and greet.

Of course after Frank greets the mob the first reporter sends the mic back to her with the mother question, “Since your mother obviously isn’t named Nicole-” That’s going to set a not so lovely precedent.

“I’m going to have to cut you off there,” It’ll be the only time she does this but Cas doesn’t want anyone making any assumptions, “Not every name’s going to be old and Greek or Latin sounding. I knew a friendly titan named Bob and Percy over there can tell you all about the gods of the East River and the Hudson. To answer your question, my mother is Lady Nike, the goddess of victory and success.” She should have said Darwinism.

They take their time going through the obvious. People were more impressed by Percy, Annabeth, Jason, and Hazel which led into the tangent about the difference between the Greek and Roman halves, “We didn’t make it up one day. It was the Ancient Romans that decided on the name change and then we all got caught up in the middle,” Thank you Leo but he has a point.

Piper is a little bit hesitant when stating her mother’s name but Cas gives her a little nudge and Jason probably does the same or something similar on her other side, “My mother is Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.” And so much more but most people don’t know that Aphrodite has a war aspect from Sparta and other parts of Lakonia. It’s not seen very often but Piper definitely got the lion’s share of the fight missing from most of her siblings. Cas has never interacted with Aphrodite directly but she can say that the goddess is excellent at sparking conflict like Ares. It’s probably why they get on so well.

The questions get a little bit more fun after that, “Which one of you is the most powerful?” Cas starts laughing and it’s funny to watch everyone pointing at their significant others except for Leo and Cas. Leo, of course, has jokingly put his own hand up in the air but Cas points at Annabeth. Which means she wins since Star-Girl got a vote from Percy too.

“Never go up against the Wise Girl,” Is all Percy manages to say before Annabeth shuts him up again but everyone nods in agreement. This is so much better than her first episode with the media but she does have a bunch of demigods with her. What’s not to love about these guys?

Then the harder question comes and Jason practically throws a mic at Cas, “Is this another line up of superheroes like the Avengers?”

“I never received a formal invita-” Annabeth elbows her. It’s why she’s there….it’s just Cas has been playing the perfect heiress for a year...now she doesn’t need to, “Ow! Fine, real answers.” She sits up straighter, “No, New York has been a home to the Greek demigods since the 1800s. It was attacked and we defended it as I’m sure any of you would do in our position,” Maybe. A little bit of optimism goes a long way, “I don’t know what these guys are doing here though,” She points to her left, “They’re all from California so whatever.”

“Excuse you,” Piper says next to her, “I am a Greek. The Romans are from California.”

Cas just grins, “Excuse you, where’s your family house again? That’s right, Malibu.”

“Yeah, two feet from the Stark Mansion and you have a place in LA.” Which she still has to get fixed up from when a satyr used it over night with a couple of demigods. He ate part of her couch.

“But I live in Lenox Hill.” As does Piper when she’s on the East coast.

Jason reaches over and takes the mic back from them, not that they put up a fight, “The Roman demigods are similarly located in Berkeley and we weren’t going to leave our friends in New York to face the scrutiny alone.” Sparky has come such a long way in the last year or so. All grown up...they all are actually but Jason has really impressed her with the changes he’s been building in New Rome. (With the help of Hazel and Frank.) That’s why she’s so certain that they can handle this. Not only does Cas trust these people with her life but she trusts them with the safety of the other demigods too.

There’s one more difficult question that gets gifted into Cas’s lap and she makes a show of removing her sunglasses and rolling her eyes at Leo literally throwing the mic at her, “Will the demigods continue to protect New York?”

They already have but these people don’t know that, “Defending our home isn’t a job. It’s a privilege because we have somewhere to call home. However, New York has the NYPD and the FDNY and all of the other heroes that signed on to protect it. We won’t be interfering with that unless asked or something extraordinary happens.” Magic/monster problems are another story and if the world has a problem with that they can just disappear again for a few more decades. It would be a sucky loss but she’s going all in on the betting pool and if this comes up aces and the  ~~ mortals ~~ baseline humans accept them then the hard part is over. Shield and any other interested parties can’t come in as long as they’re being closely watched by the mob and the demigods remain hyper-vigilant which they have to be anyway.

Someone asks them what they plan to do next and Cas sits back to enjoy Hazel taking the question, “I can’t speak for anyone else but I’ve been hoping to further my education in art and maybe one day own a horse ranch.” Gods deliver her from the wonder that is Hazel Levesque. The daughter of Pluto can have all the riches of the land at her fingertips but she wants to pursue art and aspires to take care of horses one day.

Disney Princess of the Underworld.

The world doesn’t deserve this sweetheart.

The Q&A is called to an end not long after that and Cas can safely say that it went very well. People are curious to get closer rather than cautiously keeping their distance. Once she’s given the all clear, Cas is off that platform and jumping to the ground without wasting time on something as paltry as stairs so that she can wrap Pepper in a hug, “Thank you, that means so much.”

Pepper squeezes her as tightly as she can, which isn’t really all that much, “We owed him, Cassie,” She pulls back and puts her hands on Cas's shoulders, “Without him, we wouldn’t have you now.”

Cas blows out a sharp breath, “Gods, all of you are trying to make me emotional today. It’s very much not awesome.”

They all head back inside to clean up and go home to await the verdict of the Court of Public Opinion. The plan is riding on getting majority favor from them so that any ‘official’ moves against them can be shot down by being louder. Well, as Caesar once said before crossing the Rubicon, iacta alea est. There’s nothing to be done now but wait for the next move on this front.

She turns her focus to Olympus where she’ll be accepting responsibility for her actions with the others before the Olympian Council.

~~~

It’s unnecessary(and very appreciated) but Happy drives them to the Empire State Building even though they could’ve walked. Well, they would’ve walked but there’s a slight chance of being spotted and harassed if they’re all together. The entrance to the building is the same as always even if there are some people who look twice but they quickly return to their business and forget all about the group of heroes.

The doorman doesn’t hesitate to send them all the way to the top and while he offers to split the group they all agree to squeeze into one. It’s a tight fit with men like Frank, Percy, and Jason but they’re all friends so who cares. This trip is quite a bit different from the last time she was here because Cas and Chiron aren’t all that significant to Mt. Olympus .

All eight Heroes of Olympus, including Percy and Jason, are very interesting. That’s why all of the minor gods and godlings are stopping to stare as they pass by on their way up the city to the throne room. The city is as gorgeous as ever, actually even more so since Annabeth finished updating it. Overflowing fountains form rivers and streams that cascade down the mountain while classical buildings and temples gleam with painted facades depicting the great deeds of gods and heroes.

And of course the looming statues of the gods watch over everything in their dominion.

She feels so small up here. Cas wraps that feeling tightly around her so that she can’t get too big of a head back on Earth.

“Gees, you’d think we were zoo animals or something,” Leo’s right. It is a little bit like being on display, “They’re almost as bad as the-”

“Shut up, Leo,” Is helpfully chorused through the group before he can get all of them cursed by an offended minor god.

“I’m just saying…”

“We all feel it, Zuko. We just don’t acknowledge it.” It’s called survival. The gods get to stare and coo at their favorite heroes and the demigods in question have to allow it. Doesn’t mean that it isn’t awkward as hell to be watched like this but they just have to keep their heads on straight.

They all pause at the top of the stairs before the council room door where Annabeth gives some last minute reminders, “Remember to bow to Lord Zeus first before moving to kneel by your parent.”

They all know this but the reminder is important since some of them-*ahem Percy ahem*-have skipped that part in the past. Since they(really, it’s just Cas) may be in trouble it’s important to behave.

Surprisingly it’s not Percy who comments, “Do I have to kneel near my mother? I could just stay by Cas.” Cas has to kneel equidistant to all the gods which is a completely indefensible and stressful place to supplicate herself.

“Don’t do that, please. Your mother is one of the gods without a huge reason to dislike me right now. I’d prefer to keep it that way.” Assuming that the gods aren’t mad about the premature reveal. It’s entirely possible that they are and Cas is about to be executed after a very brief trial. “I’ll be with Hazel unless Lord Hades is here.” He very well might be. It’s nearly the summer solstice.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Percy says from the door next to Jason both of them are ready to face the music from their fathers and everyone else is as ready they will be when they push the door open and enter the throne room. The effect is immediate. Olympus is saturated in the gods’ power but the throne room is overflowing with it. Molasses at two times gravity.

Hades is in fact here so Cas will be on her own because her mother is not in her lower seat near Athena or Zeus. Nope, instead she gets to bow together with the others until Zeus gives an enigmatic, “Rise, heroes.” That’s a good sign.

The group fans out to kneel before their godly parents while Cas sinks down to one knee where she is. Hermes nods at her but only Apollo smiles at Cas directly and she returns it. The sun god really is like a fungus.

There’s the general understanding that this is going to take a while so they aren’t expected to stand the whole time since some of their parents are here. No, Zeus would never make his son stand the whole time….

Some of the seriousness of where they are is lightened when Bessie the Ophiotaurus spots Percy from his little bubble of water. He happily flips and moos in greeting until Percy subtly waves and says ‘hi.’

“We must once again thank the Heroes of Olympus for defending our seat of power,” More of the tension leaks out of Cas’s shoulders from the knowledge that they did good overall, “Make no mistake, this was but the first act at the start of a new age. Do not grow complacent in your victory.” What? Do the gods know something about the Chitauri attack? She bites her tongue even as the gods exchange glances over their heads. The gods definitely know more than they’re telling. They’re the gods; it’s what they do.

“First, my son, Jason,” Jason rises to his feet in confusion, “Though you were absent for the battle, your actions in fostering good relations between Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter allowed the demigods to stand together and unified before the mortals.” She’s not surprised that Zeus found a way to award his son, “In acknowledgment of your skills and abilities I name you the official ambassador between the Greeks and the Romans.” It’s about time. Jason has already taken over that job so he should have the title that goes with it.

He bows, “Thank you, fath-, Lord Jupiter.” Then returns to his place before his father’s feet.

Zeus briefly accepts the thanks and then moves on, “Praetors of Rome, stand.” There’s an imperceptible shift but Cas knows that she’s before a more Roman leaning pantheon at the moment. It’s disconcerting, “Your quick action to support and aid your Greek brethren showed great control and foresight. You bring honor to the Legion.” Well, damn.

Mars speaks first, “Frank, son, you are a leader and hero like you mother. In recognition of your skill and strength I bestow upon you a new bow and quiver,” Said objects appear in Frank’s waiting hands, “You will find that there is more to these arrows than what is immediately visible,” Kind of like Frank. She wonders if they’re tipped with dragon teeth like his last present….that would be awesome. It's not like he needs anything else since he broke the matchstick curse.

“Thank you, Lord Mars.” He also quickly bows before returning to his previous spot.

“Hazel Levesque, my daughter returned from the Underworld,” Pluto’s voice is hard to listen to but Hazel rises in acceptance of whatever she will get even if it’s a one way trip to Elysium since she’s still a runaway soul, “In acknowledgment of your actions in the realm of the living the Underworld withdraws its prior claim on your life.” Oh gods, Cas doesn’t hold back her gasp of surprise and neither do the others, “I look forward to seeing what you do with this life of yours.” Hazel is free to traverse the world and the Underworld with Nico now as any child of Pluto/Hades should be. So now she's free to exist without fear and the gems and such that she summons are perfectly safe to use.

That’s one hell of a reward but it’s likely also an acknowledgment of her actions against Gaea and the Triumvirate. Hazel deserves it.

“Leo Valdez,” Zeus doesn’t even get to speak. Hephaestus jumps right in on that but the god of forges has never been one for...people, gods or mortals, “Stand up, kid.” Leo scrambles to his feet, “Ingenuity is a gift you already have so there’s no point in me giving you anything for your stunts on Festus. You can make what you need for yourself.” Hephaestus snaps his fingers, “You’ll find that Bunker 9 has just been upgraded when you go back to camp.” That’s cool. Not very personal but definitely useful for Leo and his siblings...and Cas if she stops by.

Leo takes the gift for what it is and bows with a grin, “Thanks, father.” Before also returning to his seat. Cas is happy with it. It means Leo will be in town for a while as he digs through everything his father gave him.

Zeus seems to have decided that talking is beneath him because he waves to Athena next, “Annabeth Chase, restorer of the Athena Parthenos, stand.”

“Yes, my Lady.” Annabeth gives a formal bow to her mother before awaiting her reward.

“Again and again, my daughter,” Athena is always stern but there’s pride radiating from her as she speaks, “You prove your cleverness and skill when tested. I have nothing for you to build this time but,” She lifts a hand and a new laptop appears in Annabeth’s hands, “You will find there everything you need to unlock your ‘other’ ancestry.” 

Annabeth clutches this new source of knowledge to her chest and hastily thanks Athena before returning to her seat. This might make up for losing Daedalus’s laptop in Tartarus.

“Piper McLean, my beautiful and brave child, you have done so well.” Aphrodite looks giddy from her throne and it’s for good reason. It’s not often that one of her demigods is recognized by Olympus.

Piper with all the skill available to her disguises her grimace as a smile and bows, “Thank you, mother.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Aphrodite clasps her hands together, “In recognition of your efforts and courage, I bless your dagger Katoptris. Where before you had to look for a vision on its surface now you will know when it has something important to show you. It’s also still the most perfect mirror, as well.” That is a very helpful gift that Piper will definitely put to good use. Very practical and very much unlike that time she decided playing dress up with Piper was a good idea.

“Percy Jackson!” Shit, that means that Cas is going last. She didn’t want to go last but Percy is quick to jump to his feet before his father, “My son, I have seen many heroic exploits but flooding a city to save lives is new even for me. And you did save many lives before, during, and after the battle as a true hero would.” The funniest part is Percy’s ‘been there done that’ face he’s sporting before Poseidon right now. It’s hilarious but at this point what do they give this boy? “In acknowledgment of your most recent achievements I name you as a member of my house.” Whoa, “As long as you live, you are free to come and go from my palace.” It’s not a thing. Percy doesn’t want things. To be able to go uninhibited and see his father (with guaranteed protection from his immortal siblings) at any time is a precious gift that’s not often afforded to demigods.

Percy deserves that too, “Thank you, dad.” She’s happy for Aqualad.

“Cassandra Stark, stand,” Fuck, Zeus doesn’t sound overjoyed to be saying her name, “Two years ago you stood before the gods and asked for permission to carefully reveal the demigods to the mortals over an extended period of time. Is that correct?”

“Yes, my lord.” She says while standing from her bow.

“This was not careful and two years in not a long time even for a mortal,” Cas remains silent as those lightning blue eyes stare her down, “Still, you have done well in protecting both the demigods and Olympus,” That’s not so bad. This could be going worse, “In return, I have seen fit to grant you knowledge.” That’s new…. “The Chitauri attack was an attempt to draw out an object that their master wanted. This attempt failed but they will be back for it one day.” He says nothing further and Cas is just left hanging there. She has  _ questions _ now that are ready to burst from her person. The stare down she’s getting from Zeus and Hera makes her bite her tongue.

Instead, “Thank you, Lord Zeus.” Because at least she has confirmation that the Chitauri were after something else. She has no idea what that could be but she knows it exists which is a start.

“That’s it?” Dammit, Percy, “Who are they? When are they coming back?”

“Enough, Perseus,” Poseidon quickly silences Percy using his full name, “You have time and there are more important matters to deal with now.”

“No, no, let him speak,” Dionysus says, “Perhaps he’ll finally learn some respect.” Shit.

Thankfully, Zeus doesn’t seem to be in the mood for a smiting today. It might cause a fight if he kills his nephew in front of his brothers, “Be quiet, Dionysus, and Jackson, follow your Strategos’s lead. I have given her more than enough information.” Right, they need to get out of here now. 

“Yes,” Aphrodite says, “And now that the mortals are all aware of you again it will be so much easier for us. It was so difficult before when they thought we were just stories.” Nope, she won’t say anything and none of the others will either.

“Perhaps they’ll take better care of the Wilds now that they’ve remembered who watches over it,” Artemis says and Cas doesn’t get her hopes up for that one.

“Forget the wilds, sis,” Apollo grins from his throne, “Imagine having all of our deeds known again. The songs about how great we are,” Then he looks at the eight demigods on the floor and winks, “Songs about heroes too with festivals and celebrations to our collective amazingness.”

Flattering, but Cas won’t hold out hope for anything like that to happen again. Hazel has a question though, “Father, now that the mortals know about us is the Mist going to vanish?” Silence falls across the room at that very important question. It affects Hazel more directly given her abilities to control it with her magic. Also, without the Mist mortals and monsters are going to knowingly interact for the very first time in centuries and Cas is not looking to get blamed for that. 

Hades - wait, no, he’s Pluto again - looks down on his daughter and shakes his head, “Not immediately. It will thin in places over time but locations like New Rome and Camp Half-Blood will remain concealed,” Good, kiddies are safe then, “Older more powerful creatures may still be able to cloak themselves in the Mist but soon the mortals we begin to see clearly.” Cas likes that answer. A slow and gradual exposure to the things that go bump in the night will allow the mortals to normalize a demigod whipping out celestial bronze (or imperial gold) to go slaying.

“It is just unfortunate that your actions brought dangerous attention to the demigods, Cassandra.” What? Cas looks up at Athena in concern. She knows that the mortals are watching them closely but she thought that they were doing well. The mob seems to be in their favor right now. She took the measure of Fury too. Shield makes questionable calls but Fury doesn’t strike her as the type to go after kids and Cas has more than enough power at her fingertips to keep them back should the need arise.

“What does that mean?” This is so confusing and frustrating, “Does it tie in to the ‘many heads and hands’ message that Lord Hermes gave to the Shield agents?” Dammit, that slipped out but she has so many questions.

“Silence, Cassandra!” She shrinks back as Athena admonishes her, “Do not look further into that matter. None of you are to look into it, at all.” Cas bows her head and agrees to the goddesses command because there’s nothing else that she can do.

“But my lady,” Annabeth speaks up, “If there’s a threat against the demigods then we should-”

“It is not for you to deal with,” Those cold grey eyes bare down on all of them, “If those mortals move against us then they face the wrath of Olympus as was promised but it won’t be from any of you.”

“Heroes,” Hermes says, “As messenger of the gods, I guarantee that this threat knows that the gods are watching but do not go looking for it.”

“Yeah,” Ares says, “I don’t believe in fighting for my kids but in this case I’ll burn them to the stump.” That scares her even more. Ares sent Clarisse and Cas off as teenagers with a civil war vessel (it was crying for maintenance) that was crewed by the skeletons of confederate soldiers. What could be so bad that he’s willing to step in directly?

Zeus must not have liked something about Ares’s statement because he bellows, “Ares! That is enough!” And all of them cringe back, “We are done with this matter. Heroes,” Zeus returns his attention to the demigods, “Remain aware. These are dangerous times,” Cas doesn’t like those words but there isn’t anything she can do to make them go away either. From what she understands, Cas may have plunged the demigods head first into more danger than what they’ve previously been up against. However, they have more resources now and allies that they can reach out to for help.

~~~

“Are you telling your dad about this?” Everyone stops what they’re doing in the elevator when Piper asks Cas a very important question.

The answer should be obvious. Tony Stark and Cassandra Stark are for all intents and purposes a team. Everyone thinks so and Cas is inclined to trust her father with everything however….however her father was very rattled by the events of the battle. There’s nothing outward or telling yet but there’s something off. Cas hasn’t figured out what it is and she’s not in a position where she can press him about it. 

They made promises to each other about talking mostly for if one of them is in actual danger and right now with regards to this Cas is currently safe, “No. Not yet, for now I’m going to continue as I have been,” She looks around the group of demigods she really is in charge of, “You should do the same.” She cuts off Percy before he can argue about telling Mrs. Jackson, “Poseidon said we have time. Right now, we need credibility. You don’t get that by shouting about the coming apocalypse. Once we have evidence,” Or at least a means to get it, “Then we present our findings.” Camp Half-Blood will need to find out and so will New Rome but they’ve kept themselves secret for centuries so this is no biggie.

One or both of those groups may be the ones to solve the space problem. It would be short sighted if Cas put all of her eggs in the Dr. Foster basket and her own personal efforts. The others reluctantly agree with her logic and promise to hold off on spreading the knowledge Zeus gifted to Cas to the mortals.

It should be fine(?).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So!
> 
> Cas has deliberately put the demigods in a position of non-interference with the mortals...baseline humans. How's that gonna work out?
> 
> And she is deliberately keeping information from the gods between the demigods? Does she have a point?


	12. Teeing Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a detail: This chapter covers the end of June into early July.

Her twenty third birthday passes without any real significance. It’s been a little over a month since the Chitauri Invasion (the official name that no one in her circle agrees with) and other than a nasty bruise that will probably stick around for more than a day courtesy of one hell of a birthday punch from Meg of all people, nothing interesting happened. Everyone was a little too busy to put anything more than the bare minimum effort, well, the ‘adult’ demigods. The kids had a normal field day with pomegranates everywhere including all over Cas but she was happy to retreat back to her home at the end of that day. She arrived late but she really prefers her own mattress so it’s worth the drive.

This means she’s more than a little bit surprised when she steps out of her elevator, bruised and an absolute mess(she showered at Camp Half-Blood but had no change of clothes), on Wednesday, June 20, 2012, one of the rare times that her birthday is actually the Summer Solstice, and gets hit in the face with a loud, “Happy Birthday!” Cas doesn’t yell or act defensive or pull a weapon.

No, she jumps and trips into the wall while saying, “What the hell?”

At which point she hears, “Hey Jarvis, save that to the blackmail folder.” Her father is such a considerate man.

“No,” She may be whining a bit but it’s supposed to be her day, “I’m too tired for another party. Look! The other kids beat me up.” Cas needs sleep but her family is here including Rhodey and Happy.

“Don’t worry, Cassie,” Rhodey is quick to reassure her, “It’s just cake and some time that’s not work.”

It’s not like they’ll leave if she ignores them, “Fine, but I’m probably going to fall asleep on one of you. I’m so glad that the drive back is mostly on Northern Blvd because I totally read the Queensboro Bridge turnoff wrong.” Thankfully, muscle memory (and Jarvis) steered her home safely when the road signs stopped making sense.

“You can sleep on Tony,” Pepper says, leading Cas to focus on her father who looks like crap as, “Both of you need to rest more.” Yeah, she’s probably right.

“You look like crap, old man,” She doesn’t know what he could possibly be doing that’s keeping him up but then again Cas doesn’t have an excuse anymore either. There’s plenty of people for her to delegate to now that things are slowing down and the Romans and preparing to go back west. 

“Says the person so tired that she forgot how to read.” From anyone other than her father she’d be offended by that. 

“But I’m young enough to power through it.” Cas just hits back where it hurts in the age card.

“Hurry up and sit down, Cas,” Happy’s pretending to be snarky but it’s how he shows concern, “I’m not looking to be here all night.” That is a bold faced lie and they all know it. Everyone that’s here right now is here because they want to be.

“What are we doing anyway?” She's all for the idea of relaxing with her family but she’s not the sit and chill type. None of them are really. Also, it’s almost eleven so her birthday is just about done.

“Jarvis,” Her father says from the spot on the couch that she plans on invading in a minute, “Play the greatest Star Wars movie ever made.” She’s going to end up pushing him into Pepper but the woman invited this on herself.

“Empire is always a good choice,” She says as she takes her place. They’re not really cuddly or overly affectionate and this will probably cover the both of them for father/daughter affection for a few months but it’s her birthday and she’s tired. Cas will use her father’s shoulder as a pillow on her birthday and the haters can be jealous of her happiness.

The funny thing is that everyone else falls asleep. Even Rhodey.

So while Obi-Wan and Yoda are pleading with Luke to not confront Vader on Bespin, Cas cranes her neck to look up at her father, “You really aren’t sleeping, are you?”

He doesn’t look at her, “What makes you say that?”

Besides the excess of affection he’s currently allowing? “You have concealer on. One of my closest friends growing up was a child of Aphrodite. I know when people are trying to hide under eye bruising.”

“Drop it, kid,” As if she could, “I’m fine.”

Maybe he is but it’s not like he’ll ever tell her anything different, “I do the same thing. After the titans,” After Tartarus, after Gaea, “I worked until I collapsed so my brain was too tired to show me anything when I passed out.” There was so much to be done too but eventually she kept herself up for the stupidest of reasons just to hold off sleep for a little while longer.

His voice takes on a warning edge, “Cas…” Pepper shifts a little bit on the other side of them but settles back into sleep.

“I know, I know,” She shifts back into a more comfortable position, “I don’t touch your demons but the tinkering...it’s a temporary fix at best. It helps to get some space from it.” Cas didn’t spend much time in Manhattan in the months following the titanomachy and she ended up in California only a handful of months after Gaea. And Cas has never been back to Rome, “No one will judge if you go back to Malibu while the tower is under repair.”

“You trying to hustle me out of here?” It’s said like a joke but there’s a real grain of worry, “I thought we had a good thing going.”

“We do,” Cas loves having a father in reach. It’s awesome. He’s awesome, “But there’s a reason I don’t go to Rome. Gods, I think I would be on edge the whole time if I had to go back there. So, if I had to I’d fly back and forth from here to LA every week should you decide that New York’s a bust.”

He shifts a bit bringing her just a tad closer, “Venice is better than Rome anyway.”

“Venice smells,” Or so she’s been told. Cas was in Tartarus when the Argo II passed through there….Tartarus also smells.

“So does New York.”

“Yeah….but I love this city,” It’s filled with her people all of the time now too so it’s even better. They fall silent as Luke gets his prideful ass handed to him by Darth Vader. The baby jedi should have listened to Yoda because Han was already beyond his reach and Lando saved Chewie and Leia. There was no reason for him to go after them except to get his heart broken.

There’s a long pause in the conversation before her father speaks again, “So….Rome?” She knew he would ask the moment that she brought it up.

“Bad,” The words don’t exist, “There are places even the gods won’t go. I had Percy and Annabeth with me but we didn’t want to go. It….” She shakes her head, “It’s not something we talk about,” That’s a lie, “Not all of it. No one else was there.”

“If they weren’t there how could they get it?” He sounds so resigned and for the umpteenth time Cas wishes she could rage at the malakes who sent that nuke to Manhattan. It’s their fault her father had to fly it up the wormhole.

“Yeah,” Cas watches dispassionately as Luke’s hand falls down the shaft, “Chiron tried and it did help. He doesn’t understand but he did listen.” To her halting and bumbling words as she tried to adequately describe the feeling of dying not from poison or injury but feeling like her life was literally being leached from her being. Or the awe/terror from standing before Nyx herself….Percy and Akhlys….

Her father sighs and it’s a heavy thing, “I’ll think about it,” That’s good, “But I’m expanding the workshop and the garage right now so it’s going to be a few weeks anyway.” What does he need more space for? Whatever. It’s his home.

“I kind of need you around for the next few weeks, so it’s for the best.” Cas needs him to stick it out until there’s official moves and decisions made regarding the demigods. As soon as it’s a viable option, she’ll suggest it to Pepper...and maybe Rhodey too. It depends on how her father is doing by then but hopefully vacation time away will help.

“No work talk, Rhodey said so,” Then there’s a pause, “I’m not going anywhere, kid.” Dumb old man gets emotional when he’s tired. She loves him for it. The conversation ends around there but once the movie credits start to roll they have Jarvis wake the others by turning on every light in the room. It hurts but it gets them moving.

While she’s laying in bed that night(more like pre morning but whatever) Cas falls asleep wondering if she actually helped her father at all.

~~~

“-it just seems kind of rude for her to be late since she’s the one that dragged us here.”

Uh-oh. Cas holds outside the door that isn’t fully closed. If it was closed then she wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation occurring in the conference room at the moment. Sound proof and all that. Just goes to show how important it is to follow procedure.

“Janey! Stop, this is Cassandra Stark and she’s totally a superhero. You know like Thor,” Somewhat flattering from an unknown voice that isn’t Dr. Jane Foster or Dr. Erik Selvig, “She’s probably putting out building fires and saving kittens.”

“Unlikely,” That’s Dr. Selvig, “If she’s not working with the demigods then she’s on some other project. I’ve seen her work-”

He’s not wrong about where she was. Her father decided that the Mark VII cuffs were too inconvenient because he can't always have them on and they’re too obvious. It’s a fair complaint. Also, it was a little bit all or nothing like a nerve depolarization. Full suit up or nothing. Eventually, they should be able to make it more specific. That’s her project to work on though because her father has fallen into some sort of inspired engineering binge where things are just coming to him.

Or it seems like that at least. He’s always got something new to work on right now so she’s covering for him on the SI end of things and she’s also got her own work to do as well. She likes having people she can trust covering the bases that she can’t see to personally so she’s building a science team. They never did get that vacation which is too bad because there’s a property in Dubai that Cas has never been to. Damn her for being grounded to the states.

Either way, time to break up the talking, “Sorry, I’m late,” She bursts in with her best smile, “Morning, Dr. Selvig. It’s good to see you again.”

“Dr. Stark,” He looks around behind her, “I thought Ms. Chase would be joining us this morning.”

Yeah, so did she, “Annabeth had a breakthrough sometime yesterday and took off for Boston,” In Cas’s Mercedes SL roadster too. Which is part of why Cas was late, Annabeth was going to get her from R&D and Helen today but didn’t show. Jarvis, the helpful little troll that he is, decided to wait until the time of the meeting to remind Cas about it. And now here she is, “We won’t hear from her for a while. She and her family get first dibs on Asgard research.”

“Why Boston?” Cas looks at the unknown person in the room. She looks to be about Cas’s age give or take two to three years. Cas isn’t very good at guessing ages honestly. 

“Leif Erikson,” The Norse settlement in Vinland didn’t start in Boston but they ended up there eventually, “I’m sorry, I’m Cassandra Stark” She holds out her hand to this unknown and totally nonthreatening looking woman with very large glasses, “I know Dr. Selvig and I know of Dr. Foster but I don’t know you.”

This woman should be described as bubbly with the way she pops up, “I’m Darcy Lewis and I’m Jane’s intern.” And she stayed on through all of this craziness with the aliens and gods….that’s called loyalty right there. Or desperation for credits. It’s hard to tell with college students.

“That has to be interesting,” And she means that.

“Tell me about it,” Darcy says, “Right before the space invasion some Shield guys showed up and were all like ‘we gotta go’ and suddenly Jane and I are in an observatory in-”

“Darcy!” Jane cuts into the story Cas would very much like to hear the end of, “Sorry about her, I’m Jane Foster,” Now, Cas eagerly shakes this woman’s hand before taking her seat across the table from them.

“No, it’s not a problem and I’ve already heard a lot about you from Thor,” From the way her eyes light up Cas knows she’s hit the nail on the head with regards to approach, “He was very clear in his praise of your intelligence.” And in his desire for Cas to keep an eye on her but she doesn’t seem like the woman that wants to be a damsel so….Cas will keep that to herself.

“Thor said that?” She nods but doesn’t react to Darcy’s dramatic eye roll or Dr. Selvig’s reluctant expression, “Did he say when he would be back?” She almost feels bad because Dr. Foster has clearly been looking for news on her boyfriend. From the way Shield hid her and Thor spoke about her it was obvious that there was something between them but this woman is head over heels.

Cas tries to find a nice way to put this, “He’s….before Loki came to Earth,” She shoots an apologetic glance at Dr. Selvig for bringing it up, “He triggered revolts in other realms under Asgard’s rule to distract Odin.” She doesn’t know if the uprisings are justified because Thor seems like a well meaning heir but Svetlana was decent too and her father was Joseph Stalin. Odin could be horrible, “As crown prince, Thor’s going to have to subdue all of those. Duty first.” 

Gods, Dr. Foster looks like someone just said her puppy died, “Oh...well, that’s...understandable.” Dammit, Cas is here for the science. She looks helplessly at Dr. Selvig who shakes his head.

He is nice enough to take the wheel of the conversation, “Dr. Stark, you said you were interested in Jane’s research into Einstein-Rosen Bridges.”

That’s what she’s here for, “Yes,” Please, science not weepiness, “There was a wormhole roughly four hundred and fifty feet above us a little over a month ago. Dr. Selvig, though under duress, you built the device that focused the Tesseract in that spot. Asgard can pop in and out of here without a super powerful Cube,” Or they will because the Bifrost is also undergoing repairs(?). Cas didn’t get a ‘why’ out of Thor only that it was damaged, “I doubt we’ll be able to do something like that any time soon but it would be nice to understand how it works and find a way to detect when something like it is happening.” Also, space! Cas doesn’t know as much about it as the people across from her do but it’d be fun to pick up. Well, she does know her constellations.

“Hey!” Cas doesn’t know what she said to offend Darcy, “It wasn’t Erik’s fault. Thor’s evil brother made him do it.” Oh...oops. That wasn’t on purpose.

“Wasn’t trying to place blame only pointing out expertise,” Should she play the demigod card? Yeah, why not. She can remind them that she’s well aware of the weirdness, “I’m a Greek. I know all about misplaced blame.” It’s actually at the heart of a lot of poems, books, and plays that she’s read. The Oresteia comes to mind. Agamemnon had it coming. Clytemnestra did not, so screw Orestes and Electra for turning on her.

Whatever. Tangents are not important here.

It does get Dr. Foster to re-engage in the conversation, “Is Olympus like Asgard then? Another world? The information you released wasn’t entirely clear on that.”

This is something that Cas will happily talk about, “You’d be better off talking to Chiron or one of the children of Hecate because this isn’t my specialty but technically speaking it’s in a parallel dimension that the gods control access to,” Via an elevator in the Empire State Building.

Dr. Foster seems so ready to continue this conversation and even Dr. Selvig looks like he has questions because they haven’t really had much time to talk. She’s ready too but Darcy proves to be of sound and practical mind, “Aren’t we here to talk about Jane’s research?” Right. If Dr. Foster agrees to the contract then they can really get into the nuts and bolts of it.

“You are correct, Ms. Lewis,” Cas puts away the science brain and tries to pull from the business knowledge she’s been attempting to absorb from Pepper, “J, pull up the contract for someone of Dr. Foster’s level of qualification.” The document in question appears in triplicate in front of them, “Obviously, there’s room for negotiation here but at that point I’d have to bring in legal before anything’s official.” Then she needs Pepper’s seal of approval since this is a large deal that will draw some attention. If it catches her father’s attention he’ll weigh in as well. Cas hopes that it does because he’s been working almost exclusively on Iron Man which has to be exhausting not to mention boring. A brain needs diversity.

Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig start at the beginning since this is probably all familiar to them but Darcy skips around a bit, “Wait...Jane only gets ten thousand dollars?”

What? That’s not correct. Hold on….

Cas rotates the image her way, “Oh...no.” She laughs, “That's just the stipend, Ms. Lewis.”

“What?” She doesn’t seem to follow and the doctors have paused in reading as well.

That’s odd, “Well, Thor implied there was a certain amount of travel for your work. So this contract takes mobility into consideration and you are in a cutting edge field. If you're going to relevant conferences or conducting a study through Stark Industries abroad we don’t expect you to pay for travel and living expenses out of pocket.” Cas didn’t even write this contract so she doesn’t understand why they’re looking at her like that. They’re just staring and blinking like Cerberus popped up behind her.

“This is a very generous offer, Dr. Stark,” Dr. Selvig finally says, “But we're going to need to read these over and think about it.”

“Of course,” she nods, “You’ll find a copy of this in your email.” The Cas dismisses the projection with a wave of her hand. She kind of thought that she was going to sell SI to some cautious senior scientists but her audience is looking kind of slack jawed. Damn, she was looking forward to the practice too. She was even planning on splitting them from Shield further by guaranteeing that none of their research will ever be weaponized(Selvig has to be angry about the Phase II weapons….or he will be when Cas tells him). 

Ah well, more opportunities will arise. Probably.

“About the Asgard research in Boston….” Dr. Foster trails off but Cas waits. She’s watched Pepper do this when she doesn’t want to give away something. Instead, she gives the doctor a minute to reorder her thoughts. Cas has dropped a lot on her today, “Will it be possible to gain access to any of that technology? Much of my work is focused on opening and establishing communication with Asgard directly.” Dr. Foster wants to call her boyfriend. It sucks honestly. Mortals and gods don’t typically end well.

Well, Cas isn’t her life coach and it did make Dr. Foster more amenable to working with her, “The artifacts of unconfirmed origin are properties of the Chase family and a few others in Boston.” She got to poke them once or twice, “Annabeth Chase is open to collaborating with you on some of the research but that’s something separate. She isn’t a Stark Industries employee.” And she probably never will be unless they contract her to build something for them.

That puts a sour face on the previously curious doctor, “And I’m guessing you only put a good word in for me if I sign the contract?”

Huh….It’s nice to meet more cynical people, “Nah,” Cas grins, “I really do want to work with you,” Cas dreams of ‘beam me up, Scotty’ tech, “But I have no real authority over what she does. Annabeth already plans to contact you, probably soon too.” With Athena’s gift that whole language barrier thing melted away so they’ll be getting into artifact function soon.

They leave not long after with the promise to be in touch. Cas is pretty certain that they’re going to take the contract but just in case she reminds Annabeth to reach out to Dr. Foster. It doesn’t hurt to be in the woman’s good graces while she’s thinking about Cas’s offer.

~~~

“I was just really confused about how surprised they were,” Cas says walking back from a casual lunch with Pepper. It’s really become one of her favorite things that they do together. Dressed in normal clothes and sunglasses in New York means that no one really sees them, “I didn’t think the offer was that generous.”

“That’s because you didn’t look at Dr. Foster’s work history,” Pepper says next to her.

“What do you mean? She worked with Shield before I started trying to poach her,” They don’t get to keep her especially when they spirit her away in the middle of the night without warning. That’s so weird. Protection or no protection, Cas would like to know where she’s being taken, by who, and why, thanks very much. Also, Cas promised Thor that she would be taking over said protection detail for his lady friend.

“True,” Pepper nods, “But before that she was mostly self funded.” What? “Culver University thought she was too far into pseudo-science and stopped funding her research in Fall of 2010. Even before that her budget was most likely limited.”

Oh…., “She got picked up by Shield right after being discredited. Should I have low-balled her?” Cas would’ve felt bad because her research is really interesting from what she’s gleaned from Dr. Selvig and Thor so she deserves the opportunity to take it as far as she can.

But Pepper shakes her head so she’s in the clear, “No, I’d never ask you to do that. Stark Industries would never do that. The initial offer is fair but they’re welcome to try and get more out of it. If it comes to that I’ll expect concessions in return.”

That’s good. Cas was slightly concerned at first before because they’re good people. She has some follow up questions about contracts on the tip of her tongue. Then they pass a little store that makes Cas pause. Oh gods….it’s absolutely beautiful, “Pepper, look at this.” This is the most amazing thing she has ever seen.

Pepper had continued a little bit down the street so she has to circle back, “What is it...oh god...Cassie, no.”

“I need it.” This is a matter of life and death.

“No, you don’t.” Pepper doesn’t understand.

“Like fifty. For here and Malibu.”

“I don’t want these in the kitchen.”

Cas waves that off though, “You have the mug I bought you. Aren’t kids supposed to buy obnoxious mugs for their dads?” It’s beautiful. Bright red. And it says Iron Dad in gold. The ‘I’ is a fancy numeral one. This is important because she totally missed out on Father’s day this year.

Pepper crosses her arms next to Cas, “You’re an adult,” But the look Cas gives her in return asks if she’s serious, “Then buy him one. Not fifty.”

She needs all of them, “I’m going to go buy this guy's whole stock.”

“Oh, great. And how are you going to get them back to the tower?”

And that is the story of how Cas carried two boxes of ceramic Iron Dad mugs to Stark Tower. Best part is that they somehow ended up all over the R&D floors too and she got some sent to California.

That afternoon she burst into her father’s lab space holding one for him and a potential solution to his suiting up issue, “How do you feel about micro-repeaters?”

He doesn’t look up from what she thinks is supposed to be an arm(?) but it’s a lot bulkier than what he usually makes, “In what context because if it’s telecommunications then it’s junk.” Gods, he looks pale. This man needs to leave the city for a while but they’re waiting on some kind of actual movement from the central government. The state government of New York is just fine with them or rather, there’s not much they can do about the demigods without raising the ire of New York City and the surrounding areas.

Anyway, she’d never put a micro-repeater on a cell tower now because it’d be pointless. Just because it’s smaller doesn’t mean it’s better so a standard one is just fine, “No, for your problem in getting the suit on during tense situations,” Like falling from a building, “I saw that you solved the standing folding issue but you’d still have to step in at a specific angle in a certain position which is still kinda limited.” The suit doesn’t necessarily know where he is while it’s open so he has to adjust for the suit when it should be the other way around.

Her father stops what he’s doing and takes a sip from his new mug but doesn’t really notice it. It’s perfect, “Alright, hit me with it.”

Awesome, “Remember when I found your test videos and I saw the beauty that is the pre-stabilizer flight footage?” Cas nearly died of laughter on the spot not just because he hit the ceiling but because of the fire extinguisher after. It was just too much.

“Unfortunately,” He motions for her to pick up the pace but she’s not rushing.

“Well, for the Mark III you wore the scuba suit thing at first.”

“Scuba suit?” He finally looks up at her, “Does this have a point or are you just trying to waste my time?” Gees, someone’s in a bad mood today. Maybe he should take note of his Father’s Day present.

She crosses her arms in response, “It does actually. Having micro-repeaters placed in a clothing layer like that at your articulating joints and evenly down your limbs along with a 3D render of your body for reference would enable the suit to know where you are.”

“But I’d have to wear something spandex beneath my clothes all the time,” He doesn’t seem thrilled and she’s aware that it’s not perfect but there isn’t much she can do beyond that. “That sounds sweaty and gross.” It doesn’t literally have to be spandex, it could be something more breathable but for accuracy it would need to be flush to his body.

“That’s the best I can come up with for that,” She shrugs, “Only way to make it better would be subcutaneous injections but you’re the one that said and I quote ‘I’m not a lost dog.’ Also, the 3D render would have to be perfect because you can’t put them in your joints or up your spine.”

Yeah, he doesn’t look entirely pleased with that news, “I’ll think about it.”

“Cool,” She wants to be out of her father’s way but she doesn’t want to miss his realization of his new mug, “Hey Jarvis, is there anything pending that could use my help?” He obliges and pulls up multiple projects that she can poke at. There’s a few hours for Cas to burn before she absolutely has to be anywhere. Before she moves away Cas notes the label, “Mark XIV?” Her father stiffens slightly in his chair, “Wow….now I’m feeling a little left out.” Cas makes a note for Jarvis to send her the manual override protocols to open the new suits just in case.

She must have said the right thing because he relaxes immediately, “Contrary to what you may think, I did build things without your input before you came and invaded my space.”

“Amazing, how did you cope?” He doesn’t answer her but does settle in to work not too far away. She has to wait ten whole minutes while listening to her father’s music. It’s not bad but Suicidal Tendencies isn’t her favorite band to have as background noise.

She’s enjoying Jarvis’s briefing on the basics for a primitive energy shield based on the portal device. This won’t be nearly as effective because it’s not powered by the Tesseract but they’ll get there. It’s only the first prototype, “Kid, what the hell is this?”

The image of him staring at the mug is too perfect to pass by, “J, save that to the old man’s best moments.” She needs a deterrent for the blackmail he’s been building against her.

“Seriously, who made this?” He doesn’t seem to be recognizing the beauty.

She’ll enlighten him, “A hero and a scholar.”

“Iron Dad? That’s….that’s….I’m offended,” Sure, he is, “This is a misappropriation of my image.”

“So you are…” She forces a serious voice because she doesn’t want to laugh and ruin it, “Iron Dad.” It doesn’t help and she cracks up. Cas doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to pull up wonder at the image of Iron Man ever again after this one.

Not even her father’s glare is enough to ruin her mirth. She’s glad that things are settling down into some degree of normalcy following the first few weeks after Loki. It’s never going to go back to the way it was before but there’s no need for that, backwards isn’t progress, “I am Iron Man,” He turns the mug over in his hand, “People are buying these?” Cas isn’t quite sure why he’s so confused over it. Her father is amazing so obviously other dads are compared to him.

Though, they aren’t buying anymore from that particular store at the moment….since she bought all of them. The owner’s silence was purchased with a photo for his wall. No biggie, “Well, it’s a solid Father’s day present.”

Her father looks up sharply, “Is that today?” Yeah, he needs some Vitamin D.

“No,” She feels bad that he looks relieved, “It was two weeks ago.” Because she just ruined it with that statement. This year it was before her birthday but she hadn’t actually seen her father for a few days before the surprise movie night that started way too late and all the guests slept through. They didn’t even cut the cake. They’ve been busy up until now so she’s taking this time for them.

“Shit,” Well, there’s definitely no need for that since it’s only their second one, “I can wrap up here and we can….”

“Forget it,” She waves him off, “Lab time is good and I’m free until five today. I think?”

Her father has Jarvis pull up Cas’s schedule (the damn thing is a life saver even if Pepper and Happy edit and run her life through it), “Ew, why are you meeting with legal?”

Tis a story of woe, “You know how we’ve been waiting on Washington? Well, some very conservative senators are starting to make waves. They think I’m a heathen.” She grins merrily at her father from across the lab. Even if people attack her there’s plenty of evidence to protect her and the others. It’s crazy but there have been history lessons all over social media about the Spanish Inquisition, Charlemagne versus the Saxons, and she can’t forget Theodosius I. She doesn’t know who did it. She hasn’t asked who did it. She doesn’t want to know who did it. (It couldn’t possibly be Ms. Allard and her team, right?....Nah.) Others have popped up but the focus has been on Christian based mass conversions and persecutions which isn’t exactly fair given that the Romans beat down on the Christians for three hundred years and the Jews before that.

And well….it’s just….this world has a long history of religious persecutions and fears of different groups. There’s a lot to draw from even if Cas doesn’t want to get into the nitty gritty. 

However, the mostly factual - she says mostly because humans suck at recording history and there’s no direct mention of demigods in the historical record back then - accounts are helping people understand why the demigods hid all this time.

Thank you Court of Public Opinion and thank you Brad Pitt and Sean Bean for making Troy (2004; not a great movie...at all but it helps) and Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix for making Gladiator (2000). It totally made people interested in them and glorified antiquity in a good way….Oh and Channing Tatum in The Eagle (2011). People do love Romans. It’s almost like Hollywood was paving the way for them to step forward. Or it’s the lingering influence of Dionysus, Apollo, and the Muses on the art/film/story telling industry.

Her father is aware of all of this since they watched all of those together like they’re Mystery Science Theater. They even did Spartacus, the movie, not the show with all of the mostly naked people. So when he says, “Jarvis, cancel that meeting. The kid and I have stuff to do,” she pretends to be annoyed but internally she cheers. If he honestly believed it was necessary he wouldn’t pull her out of it.

This is a good way to spend an afternoon.

~~~

Afternoon kind of turns into evening.

Whatever.

She’s entitled to a partial day off. Sixish(maybe? Time’s tricky at the moment) weeks is not enough to clean up completely after an alien attack but it was enough time to put plans in place that don’t require constant over watch from her(as far as demigods are involved anyway).

Cas is still gunning for an actual vacation as soon as she can get one though.

So that’s probably why she jumped on the opportunity to get out of New York for a while.

“Oh my gods,” Cas freezes in the lobby of Stark Tower that night because she knows that voice, “If it isn’t the little girl.”

“Grace,” This annoying little huntress, “What a surprise. You found me in the building with my name on it.” Well, not anymore. Thor and Loki blasted off everything but the ‘A’ and the repairs are starting on the inside. (Cas is proud to say that her father scaled back a little bit after Pepper talked to him. Not much. But at least it won’t be an extravagant hero villa….sigh.)

There’s always people coming in and out even this late at night and people don’t usually pay attention to her other than a typical hi/bye sort of thing. But Cassandra Stark talking to teen in a diadem with a wallet chain is eye-catching (especially since she’s a little bit glowy too...if they can see it). 

“You got a minute?”

“For you, Thalia, I have several.”


	13. A Much Needed Side Quest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys....this has been a hecking stress filled week. I don't know how many of readers are American adults but I think we can all agree we've been obsessing over the news stations at the moment.
> 
> Any who....this little side quest is only two chapters and roughly 8,000 words but it felt necessary to me. I like it anyway.
> 
> Enjoy!!!!

A short drive later has Cas hosting Artemis’s lieutenant in her penthouse apartment. It’s been a long time since Cas saw Thalia….not since….maybe three weeks after Gaea? They’ve been in touch but life’s hectic especially since Thalia leads a band of immortal girls around the world with their patroness.

“Where are the rest?” Cas says as she fishes a couple of sodas out of her fridge, “It’s rare to see a huntress alone.” Even more so when she’s the second in command.

“Yeah….” Thalia catches the Coke tossed at her head without looking, “You see, there was this big fight in New York. I wasn’t invited.”

“Huh. Didn’t hear anything about that.” Cas sits across from her and crosses her legs, “It’s been all quiet on this front.”

“No, why would you notice anything, Birdy?” Her mother has wings sometimes. Cas has been the subject of many bird jokes in her life, “That’s not important. I know you guys were strapped for time and we were in Winnipeg when the New York confirmation came through,” Too far to help and smart enough to keep their distance after, “Well, after the world learned Olympus is real Lady Artemis said the Mist was going to start weakening.”

Cas nods following along, “And you’re here now because?”

“I’m getting to that, Cas,” Gees, her eyes spark like her father’s, “The mortals are going to start seeing everything soon so my Lady dispatched her huntresses to start catching and relocating some of the more mythic creatures so that they don’t get killed out of fear.” Ah….Cas didn’t think about that. She’s really only been concerned about the demigods and figured everyone else could sort themselves out. “It’s not the Calydonian Boar or the Nemean Lion so we’ve pretty much been sent out alone or in small groups.”

Oops? This one is indirectly her fault.

“I was sent here to investigate what might be a basilisk out in the Pine Barrens,” What? “Figured I’d invite you since Grover mentioned you’ve been clawing at the walls over diplomacy and paperwork.” What? “Also, I owe you for saving Jason.”

Well, it’s good to know that people are still talking about her behind her back, “I saved Jason to save Jason. There’s no debt there, Thalia.” Gods, she wants to get in a car and drive but she has responsibilities. “Also, I really hope it’s a baby basilisk that you want to Crocodile Hunt to a new enclosure.” They get big, “Assuming it’s actually a basilisk.”

Thalia finishes her soda and crushes the can before answering, “Let’s be real, it’s never a basilisk.” It’s honestly never a basilisk, “Some nymph probably saw a giant snake and cried wolf.” It’s an unfortunate but true fact that giant animals often happen when a human pisses off a god. Major or minor, one of the gods’ favorite punishments is transfiguration, “But this isn’t about debt. It’s a thanks. Jason is my baby brother and I already lost him once.”

Quest vacation to track down a maybe basilisk, one of the most venomous creatures in mythology that can paralyze people with a look for easy consumption, sign her up, “In that case, please save me from my responsibilities.” She can take a few days.

“Great,” Thalia tosses her can into the recycle bin...it has a little goat on it for the satyrs that eat it, “I’m taking your guest room.”

Cas waves her off, “Whatever.” People are in and out of here all the time so she’s used to it.

Now, how to explain this to Pepper and her father?

~~~

“A basilisk?”

Cas went the direct route but she did do it in the morning so her father isn’t actually awake at the moment. He’s a coffee or two behind optimal functioning. Instead Cas gets to focus on the level headed Pepper first while she’s having breakfast and Thalia sits nearby. It isn’t even eight in the morning yet.

It may seem strange that they’re actually staying in the tower while the windows are still partially blown out but a lot of the living space is fine. The place is unnecessarily big but perfectly acceptable for a billionaire like her father. They will be going back to Malibu after the construction is finished there because it’s a lot simpler than what’ll be done here.

“Truthfully, and I really mean this, it’s never a basilisk,” This is allegedly a basilisk and it warrants Thalia Grace's direct attention which Cas is benefiting from at the moment, “It’s probably just an idiot that got turned into a snake.”

“That does happen,” Thalia says unhelpfully from across the room.

Pepper repeats herself, “A basilisk?”

“Are those the ones with the roosters and the death eyes?” Her father has reached the somewhat conscious level and it took longer than it should have honestly.

“Yes to the first and no to the second,” The eyes will paralyze someone long enough to be killed though, “But that doesn’t matter because it’s not a basilisk.”

“It could be.” Oh gods, Thalia...she isn’t helping.

“Shut up, Sailor Jupiter,” She turns back to her now very awake father and Pepper, “There’s a greater possibility of Skittles raining from the sky than there being a basilisk in the Pine Barrens.”

“Taste the rainbow,” Dammit Thalia, Cas glares at her again but she’s clearly enjoying this.

“So,” Pepper re-calibrates a moment, “So you’re going to help an immortal teenager catch what probably isn’t a basilisk but is still a giant reptile of some kind for Artemis.” Pepper’s awesome.

Cas nods and picks at the bacon in front of her, “Yeah, that about covers it.”

Her father passes a hand over his face, “No one else is going on this camping trip?” This isn’t exactly a camping trip.

Thalia decides to speak up helpfully this time, “I’ll bring Danger-Prone Daphne home safe and sound, Mr. Stark. Not a scratch.” Cas just sighs. “Seriously, we don’t want this thing causing a panic and we don’t want it or anyone else hurt. The Huntresses do this sort of relocation all the time.” It’s sadly true. Artemis is the goddess of the hunt but that means she does it respectfully. The shrinking wilds that were once the dominion of Pan were folded under her protection so the Huntresses do full on mystical wilderness management.

If it’s not a beast for Artemis to hunt down then it’s something that they want to capture and move to a larger and more fitting environment.

“I’ll reiterate,” Oh dear, her father’s pulled out the dad voice, “You’re monster hunting with just a teenager.” Her father only pulls out the dad voice when he thinks she’s exceeding maximum acceptable levels of stupidity.

But she’s already all in, “Thalia’s actually older than me by a couple of years.”

“Doesn’t count,” Shut up, Thalia, “I was a tree.”

Cas moves to cut off the only real adults in the room before they can start asking questions that Cas doesn’t want to answer, “Can you please stop? I’m trying to be reassuring here and you’re just sabotaging me.”

“Really,” Thalia raises an eyebrow, “As the daughter of Zeus, I feel it’s my duty to make sure that the truth is out there.” This feral child…. “Honesty is the best policy.”

She takes a breath and counts backwards from five, “I will be back in a few days and if you need me I’ll be in Jersey.” Because taking a vacation to New Jersey has always been on her bucket list. Whatever. There are worse places. Connecticut. Rome….San Francisco (really it’s just Mt. Tamalpais).

“Can we take one of the fast cars?” Ha.

No.

Cas shakes her head at the entire room. It may have been easier to just run off with Thalia but then she would have felt guilty because everyone is already stressed out. A vanishing/reappearing demigod is a whole lot of unnecessary problems, “I’m driving a goth barbie. We’re taking a subtle car that doesn’t scream to the world who I am.” They could probably get there on foot truth be told but that would add two or three extra travel days. Huntresses can run faster than Cas can and can maintain a pace for even longer. Percy described them as cheetahs one time which prompted her to gift Thalia with an MP3 filled with the Cheetah Girls soundtrack.

She got punched in the stomach for it but it was so worth the pain.

“My jacket is not goth. It’s punk.” 

She smiles at her father. There’s an expectation of some ribbing or maybe some fake overbearing parenting. It’s normal for them.

He sighs instead, “Try not to die during your sleepover.” Then he gets up and leaves the table causing Cas to look at Pepper with panicked eyes. Over the last year or so Cas has gone off on little adventures like this with demigods or even a satyr usually with nothing more than ‘I’ll see you in such and such amount of days.” She didn’t even tell them she was going after those manticores with Percy.

The only reason Cas is giving more than a heads up this time is because it’s going to inconvenience Pepper with everything that’s still happening around them. But she just wants a few days out of the city so she’s not quite sure why….

“Don’t worry about it, Cassie,” Pepper casts a dubious glance at Thalia, “Tony knows you can take care of yourself. He’s just….” She trails off and yeah….something’s going on in her father’s head and no one is going to find out what it is until he deigns to inform one of them. And it’s not going to be Cas….fine.

“I promise, Pepper, we’ll be  fine.” Cas is certain of it because it’s not a basilisk.

“I trust you,” Wow. Well, now she feels the pressure but it’s not like she can act anything other than composed when Thalia is there.

~~~

This should have been a painless close to ninety minute drive down I-95 to a region south east of Fort Dix. It’s not a particularly interesting drive because NJ I-95 cannot be described as scenic in any sense of the word. Unfortunately, Thalia is a little bit technology starved and won’t stop messing with Cas’s music so when she lands on Zombies but The Cranberries Cas swats her hand away from changing it again, “Can you stop?”

“No,” Cas likes Thalia, she does but sometimes…., “I’m an eternal teen, remember?” Thalia can be an insufferable shit when she wants to be.

“Okay,” Cas nods to herself because there’s obviously something going on here, “You’ve got something against me right now and you’ve talked me out into a place where it’s very easy to hide a body. What’s up?” Thalia waves her off and looks out the window instead, “Hey, Thalia, come on, it’s me. You know I like cleared air before jumping into danger with someone.” Also, she doesn’t need anymore complications with people right now.

But Thalia holds her silence which is incredibly frustrating when there’s still another thirty minutes on this drive. She’d prefer the annoying poking at the gadgets than a long sullen silence, “You got everything.”

What?

Cas just holds her own (confused) silence and waits for Thalia to continue, “When I got out of that tree, after she got over me being alive, Annabeth gushed about you and how you had plans to make things better. I thought it was a load of bull.” A lot of people did. Sometimes even Cas did, “This is so stupid.”

Nah, “Don’t be like that, Xena,” Truth time, “I thought you were pretentious. I found it shitty that you joined the hunters of Artemis after just coming back into Annabeth’s life and dumped that prophecy child stuff in Percy’s lap after he was just starting to relax.” Best time to deal with the emotions is before the violence starts.

Thalia barks out a laugh, “Thanks, asshole,” Cas just shrugs because it’s the truth, “No one thought that your crazy integration plan had any merit outside of the camps. The Huntresses, nymphs, and wild things all thought it would fail.”

“To be fair, it’s nowhere near done yet.” She changes lanes to pass a mini-van that’s actually going the speed limit on I-95. Ha. Loser.

“Please,” Thalia’s in one hell of a mood. Where has she been hiding this? Usually, she’s very direct, “Ugh, I’m supposed to be thanking you for Jason,” There’s another pause as Thalia thinks about her next words, “It’s like you got your cake and ate it too.”

That doesn’t make sense, “You think I’m like Marie Antoinette?”

“No!” Well, it would help if she clarified, “You got a mortal family, you got a demigod family, and that crazy dream of yours where demigods can have semi-normal lives seems possible now. I feel a bit cheated. I missed out on Jason. Annabeth doesn’t need me anymore and Luke...that. The Huntresses are my family but it doesn’t feel fair!” There’s a distinct lack of her mother being mentioned there but Cas doesn’t know the whole story even if she knows it’s really bad. Luke told her that much and she knows that Ms. Grace gave Jason to Lupa.

Gods…. “How long have you been holding that in?” That was one hell of a blow up. And when the fuck did Cas turn into an actual adult? She’s been plodding along and somehow she went and became a person that’s supposed to know wise shit. There was a time when Cas would run in the opposite direction of these types of conversations but she initiated this….Ah well, Lost Boys gotta grow up someday.

“I don’t know,” She covers her face, “You tell Annabeth and I’m siccing my wolves on you.” That’s a scary threat.

It’s a good thing that Cas isn’t like that, “You’re jealous….of me?” The daughter of Zeus with all the power and freedom is jealous of Cas.

“It’s stupid right?” Thalia shakes her head, “I chose to join the Hunt and I don’t regret it.”

“Dude, first, I am honored by your envy-”

“Shut up, Stark.”

“Only joke, I promise,” She drums the steering wheel for a moment, “I didn’t think I could compare to you. Did Annabeth tell you that she claimed me when we were kids?” Thalia shakes her head, “Yeah well, the only reason for my friendship with her was my mother,” Thalia grimaces because no demigods are happy with what Nike did, “And I was sort of befriending Luke. So she didn’t want to share Luke and because I’m a child of Nike I was supposed to be her friend.” Annabeth was ten. Kid logic, “But she compared us a lot at first and I never quite measured up. I was jealous of you.”

For a kid that thrived on competition and becoming the best it was a huge hit to her pride to be told by a ten to eleven year old that the tree girl was better than her. It probably helped Cas during those early times at Camp Half-Blood. She needed to be knocked off her high horse, “I didn’t know that,” Thalia says.

“The more you know,” There was a point to this, “You never stopped being a part of the family and you can totally enjoy the new age too.” Cas never came close to replacing Thalia but she can understand that Thalia might feel like she’s being phased out. Annabeth will be turning twenty one very soon but Thalia still looks seventeen and she always will. The curse of immortality is watching the people you left behind grow up without you. Personally, if she lives long enough to get one, Cas plans to throw a party over her first grey hair.

“The new age...Lady Artemis called it a second Age of Heroes like Hesiod’s ages of man,” Thalia digs into the snack cooler and pulls out a bag of chips, “You know that ended in-” Cas will happily take this conversation exit.

“The Trojan War and it’s fallout?” Everything after that was the epilogue, “Yeah, I know.” Fucking hell, what did Cas get the demigods into? That’s just what Artemis is saying, “I might have blown it, bringing us forward like this. With all the warnings I’ve been getting from the gods….from the start I was warned about my ambitions….” She thinks she has them under control and moderated but if she pushed too far too fast then it’s not just Cas out to take the fall anymore.

“No, you were right about the way things were going and the Huntresses are thinking that we’ll start getting more girls again when they hear about us,” She doesn’t see the appeal of running through the woods all of the time when Cas has the internet and a memory foam mattress but to each their own, “You brought the demigods out into a bigger stage. It makes sense that there are higher stakes now.”

Higher stakes, that’s crazy to think about, “Remember, when the highest stake was Olympus falling to the titans? We did most of the fighting.”

“Yeah, Hera dropped a statue on my legs,” That she did. Hera is a very bitter queen, “What’s your point?”

“It makes you wonder what could be so bad that it can make the gods promise to deal with it themselves,” Cas adjust her grip on the steering wheel so that she doesn’t damage it, “When back then the gods only fought Typhon directly.”

“I think you’re looking at it the wrong way,” Thalia’s turned pensive now that they’ve gotten the emotional stuff out. Things are so much more productive if she deals with them and then ignores them.

Thalia’s words make Cas want to take her eyes off the road and stare her down, “Do you know something?” Because the Huntresses are Artemis’s handmaidens and closest confidants. They’re her friends and Thalia is her lieutenant. Cas would never ask Thalia to betray a vow but if she knows something that could help her understand then she needs to know.

But alas, it is not to be, “Not the way you’re hoping. My lady hasn’t said much other than it being a new threat,” Yeah, but what? “Cas, you’ve fought monsters and they kept getting bigger. You’re looking for a bigger bad but you’ve seen Tartarus’s face. Doesn’t get much bigger than that.”

Cas tenses in her seat, “Can we not….please. That’s not open for discussion. Ever. Very closed and locked door.” Looking at him felt like an end, the end. It’s not an experience that requires repeating.

“I wasn’t,” Good, because Cas will kick her out and hunt the not basilisk herself, “I was implying that maybe legends aren’t the right angle here. New age means new dangers.” Is it too much to ask for zero dangers?

“Joy,” She sighs, “You know, we always have the most wonderful conversations.” Cas doesn’t usually just get into it with people but Thalia is someone that she butts heads with.

“It’s your fault. I’m a godsdamned basket of kittens.”

They don’t make it ten seconds before breaking down into laughter.

  
  


~~~

According to Thalia, the nymph in question lives (lived, she ran off) in the southeastern portion of the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest. For the people who know nothing of New Jersey, it’s a sizable area with hiking and campgrounds and other outdoorsy things. It also smells amazing because it’s like 80% pine trees.

So when Cas pulls into the dirt parking lot near the camp sites in the lowest profile car she has access to (it’s Annabeth’s because the girl borrowed Cas’s car so it’s a fair trade) and hops out she takes a deep breath and enjoys it. She takes in the nature around her as Thalia moves around back to her standard issue huntress gear.

Her backpack has all the essentials including one of those fancy tents that defies the laws of physics. It came from Artemis so of course it’s pretty awesome. The plan is to try and find this thing’s trail by tonight, sleep out in the wilderness, and bag it and tag it some time the next day. 

“Catch,” To keep things fair, Cas has to carry stuff too and Thalia throws a bag at her.

“Merci,” She swings the thing over her shoulder, “Are we just diving in?” They can either go straight for it or take a trail in and swing off. Preferably, they take the trail and veer off later but this is Thalia’s hunt so her call.

The girl in question takes a gander at the trail map and says, “Let’s do the Cranberry Trail. Never been,” They’ve never been in the park before to Cas’s knowledge. Map says six miles and it is in the right direction so they can just exit when they need to. Saves them the trouble of getting hit in the face by branches while running through the underbrush.

“Lead the way, Kaguya.” Thalia glares at her before taking off down the trail, “Oh come on!” Cas shouts after the disappearing huntress, “That was a good one!” Kaguya came out of a bamboo shoot….she likes that story.

Having grown up in Camp Half-Blood, Cas is very used to the idea of trails and woods and hiking. She’s done it a lot. The thing is she’s kind of spoiled because the woods and trails of Camp Half-Blood are maintained by the dryads and satyrs….and the campers with punishment chores. This trail is not professionally sculpted by nature spirits and she can tell because two miles in and Cas takes a spider web to the face.

Gross.

Not that it slows her down but it does make Thalia laugh in front of her.

“How long from when we catch this thing to when Artemis or one of the minor goddesses in the hunt comes to get it?” They actually have to catch the thing before someone comes to help them. It’s one of Artemis’s rules for the hunt to be fair and she tends to bless creatures that get away with immortality. Although, Cas has no intention of letting this reptile wander off so close to a campground.

“Not long after we secure our lizard friend,” Friend is a bit of a stretch, “Britomartis is assisting Lady Artemis with this series of hunts and should arrive in a few hours at most.” It’s so nice to have a goddess on speed dial to help out after the heavy lifting is done.

It’s a pretty trail, if a little boring, but Cas can’t expect singing dryads at every turn. Even if there were normally some in the area, they would be in hiding until Thalia and Cas catch whatever sent that one nymph running scared. They close in on the easternmost point of the trail after about twenty or so minutes of running and since Thalia picked the trail, “I say we go,” Cas faces the woods and considers the amount of sunlight they still have. Easily five hours which is plenty, “This way.” It’s a little more north than east but she picked it.

“Did your little cheat senses tell you that?”

“No,” Maybe a little, “There wasn’t a spider in the bush.”

“Oh my gods,” Thalia shakes her head as she comes up next to Cas and starts pushing through the underbrush, “You’re not actually Annabeth’s sister. Just in case you forgot.”

“I think you forgot that I’ve actually seen Arachne.”

That makes the Huntress pause, “Oh yeah….Suck it up.” Oh yeah, she says…

Trailblazing isn’t fun or glamorous. It’s also early July and being a demigod does not defend Cas from the mosquitoes which are everywhere….so the spiders aren’t even doing their damned jobs. It’s about two hours in that Thalia spots something of interest, “It’s definitely not a basilisk.”

Cas turns to investigate the tree Thalia is poking at with five thin claw marks dragged down it. Even better is the wide snake trail in the dirt next to it, “Lovely,” Cas runs the list in her head but, “Could it be a naga? I’ve never heard of one in the States before.”

Rather than answer immediately, Thalia crouches down to get a closer look, “Could be. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have the highest Hindu population in America.” Immigrants make the world go round.

That wasn’t particularly convincing though, “You don’t sound sold.”

“Nagas are guardians so why would a nymph run?”

Seems fairly obvious, “Let me see, there’s a giant snake person how about I go ask if it’s nice. Sounds like a perfect idea.” A nymph isn’t going to stick around and ask if the snake person is about to eat them.

“That’s not-” Thalia sighs, “Look I know you stick to Greco-Roman things but nagas are protectors that typically live underground,” Okay…, “In families.”

Right, they’ve only got one confirmed sighting, “So, not a naga,” Then what is it? Because it’s not just a giant lizard either, “At least it’s not a basilisk.”

Thalia stands and brushes the dirt off her pants, “No, it’s not. Let’s set up camp a little off the trail. We can follow it in the morning.” When they have lots of light. Good plan.


	14. Dare She Say She's Bored

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote some feels down in the end note today. If you guys read it then awesome. If not I get it.

“Thalia, we should circle back west. There was a water source that way.” The trail went dead about four hours in. Thalia doesn’t care though, she’s resolutely continuing in the exact same direction which is just great for the both of them.

“Your stupid instincts are going to lead us in the wrong direction,” That’s totally untrue and an insult to Cas’s capabilities. Of course, Cas doesn’t say this because Thalia is sending off intermittent sparks of electricity. The huntress is a little miffed because losing a trail isn’t exactly something that she does.

And yet here they are.

“A thousand pardons, oh great and noble huntress.” Ha. She sparked even more.

“You should be singing my praises for getting you out of the city for a couple days.” Which is true but Cas doesn’t praise anyone to their faces unless it’s really amazing.

“I thought this was a thank you for me-"

“I changed my mind. This is a great place to commit a murder.”

Okay…, “Shutting up, now.” The thing is that Cas doesn’t know when the next time she’ll see Thalia is so not making the most of it is a waste. That being said, the silence holds for another twenty minutes wrapped in the silence of nature.

“Is it true that Percy and Annabeth are ‘retiring’ from the hero stuff?” That is a hot topic right now. 

But she wonders where Thalia heard that from, “Who told you that?” She says while stepping over a rotting log.

“It was Grover,” No hesitation. That little goat-boy is just talking about everyone right now. Cas isn’t sure how to feel about that.

The truth is, “We’re all trying to retire, Xena. Obviously, we have responsibilities but none of us are looking to take another big quest.” They’ve all fought in more than enough battles at this point that the idea of making a career of it sounds like torture. Leo’s the only one of them that still wants to wander but that’s mostly for Calypso because she deserves to see the world.

Thalia stops where she’s walking and looks at Cas, “You say that while in the woods with me.” Cas just shrugs, “Eight of you literally sat on a stage in front of the world but you all want to retire.”

“That was symbolic,” They’re considered (somehow) the greatest heroes of their generation and if Meg was old enough then Cas would have brought her up too. Ew, she brushes yet another spiderweb from her hair but there are less mosquitoes in this region.

“But you promised to protect the world from future treats,” Gods, Thalia is taking things out of context.

That’s not what she said, “I implied some would volunteer to help if needed. There’s not going to be demigod first responders to mortal problems unless they join the police force or something similar.” Cas imagines that if they're ever accepted that having people of their enhanced abilities around could be beneficial.

But first Cas needs to ensure that they have civil rights, rather the Stark Industries legal department does. Now, those are scary people. She was expecting this to be a multiple years thing but they think they’ll have it cleaned up with minimal input from her for Spring 2013. Like what? Where’d her father and Pepper(really, it would be HR) find these machines?

The increasingly frustrated Thalia remains unconvinced of Cas’s sincerity though, “And what about the next alien attack?” Cas stops in the middle of the woods and sighs because that is at the heart of the matter, “Because we all know that’s on the way,” The mortals remain unconcerned with the idea of them coming back even as Cas and her closest friends all know that this was only the beginning. She has confirmation from Zeus that there will be another attack but she has no proof other than the word of a god that the majority of the world doesn’t worship.

Thor suggested so on the helicarrier. ‘Higher form of war’ is not a happy sequence of words but it feels like she’s the only one from that conversation who took it seriously. (Maybe her father did but he’s not TALKING to her about it. It’s either R&D or demigods or workshop with him at the moment.)

“I don’t expect the demigods-Greek or otherwise-to get involved in aliens if it comes down to it,” And that is the gods honest truth.

Thalia mutters a not so quiet, “Dumbass,” Before facing Cas directly, “So you’re poking at the alien problem alone.”

No, she is not, “That is an exaggeration.” Cas continues walking past Thalia, “I have a science team. My goal there is to develop an early detection system, maybe even communication too. Also, I want to be able to keep them out if we don’t feel like hosting guests. First contact was violent but that doesn’t guarantee the second one will be.” That’s why she’s trying to get more scientific help.

“It does if it’s the same people,” Which is true, “And did you really think that the Greeks are going to stay out of a problem you involved yourself in?”

That strikes a cord. Cas swings around and spreads her arms wide, “There’s nothing for them to help with. It’s science and people and meetings. Why do you think I was so excited to go on this happy little hiking trip? There’s no one to help me right now.” Her arms flop to her sides, “I will ask for help but the demigods can’t do anything for me in this.” She doesn’t want to ask for more anyway seeing as according to Athena, Cas put them in danger already. It’s not fair to put them in even more danger. Whatever the camps themselves choose to do about it up to them, she was very clear in the elevator on the way back from Olympus.

“No one?” Shit, “Don’t you have Iron Man on your side?”

“Dad’s not-” Hmmm…She tries again, “He’s been working on something else.” Without involving anyone else it seems. Fourteen freaking Iron Man suits….he doubled the number of models in a few weeks and there’s the tower and there’s the work on the mansion. This is in addition to what he’s been doing for New York and the demigods. Gods….makes her sound lazy by comparison. Thalia eyes her in that way demigods have perfected when they’re asking themselves if it’s okay for them to dig into another person’s problems. Luckily for Cas, this time Thalia decides that this isn’t relevant enough for her to push it.

Thank the gods.

Now Cas initiates the silence and decides to focus on the hunt rather than the fact that there’s something wrong with her family. No, instead she decides it’s time to stop plodding along and killing time which Tyche herself must have been waiting for because as Cas sweeps the forest floor with her eyes she catches it. 

_ Focus...Look closer... _

“Thalia?” Cas pauses at the base of a tree and yep...that is what she thought it was.

“What? Find something?” She doesn’t need to sound so surprised. Cas is capable of tracking without being nudged along by her ability...even if she totally got a little bit of help here.

Cas just points at the very human looking partial footprint. This changes things because there’s either a barefoot hiker well off the trails or this is a bit more complicated. Her current partner doesn’t mind though, “We have our heading.” Unnecessary Pirates of the Caribbean quote aside, Cas is beginning to think that this is a slightly larger hunt than she signed on for.

The near therapeutic talking is traded in for silence as they track the stumbling footsteps through the underbrush. Now, she doesn’t want to assume because sometimes people are just awkward but first impressions say this was a drunk or blind person. Cas also doesn’t think for a second that it's a lost drunk or blind mortal but she’s having trouble narrowing down her list of myths.

Can’t be a gorgon because Percy literally got all three within the last decade. Snake, shapeshifting abilities, and bumbling movements….maybe it’s the Jersey Devil.

Lol.

Thalia motions for Cas to stop then points at her ear so rather than act like a moron she closes her eyes and listens as hard as she can. There’s a trickle of water so they must be near some sort of brook or stream. Mystery creature could have enhanced hearing or smell then judging by the haphazard trail it left behind in it’s journey towards water. If it is snakelike then Cas is putting her money on taste/smell. She does her best to charade that back to Thalia who nods in hopefully comprehension before she moves to circle around so the breeze favors them.

It would be really embarrassing if they let scent give them away when they knew coming into this that the thing in question is reptilian. Life experience has taught Cas that this is going to go one of two ways. The first is that some snake mofo is about to jump them and try to eat one of them. The second possibility is that some mythological figure with some poor attempt at an adaptation to modernity is going to try and kill them(and maybe eat them).

There is no gradient.

They make it to a thick bush and try to look past it without giving themselves away. They see a barefooted woman who is in fact wearing a snake skin suit. Cas doesn’t even need to listen to her feelings to know that this being is  _ dangerous.  _ So much so that Cas doesn’t want to give her a chance to speak and mimes stabbing at Thalia who shakes her head.

She knows that they’re there for Lady Artemis under a banner of peace but if Cas thinks it’s a good idea to stab first then it probably is. However, she is a guest on Thalia’s hunt so she doesn’t stop the stupid cloudheaded girl when she moves to approach, “Hey, miss. What are you doing out here?”

The snake lady jumps, “Oh, I was wondering when you were going to come out. I smelled you both miles off,” So much for not embarrassing themselves. This is going to go south so fast….Cas exits the bush too, “Forgive me for not turning but I’m resting my eyes.”

Sure, that’s normal, “You’re sleeping right now?” The polite thing to do would be to introduce herself but Cas has this nagging feeling in the back of her head telling her that she knows this story. 

“No,” The lady sounds way too pleasant when she says, “I don’t sleep.” That’s not comforting, “So what are two demigods like yourselves doing out here?”

Cas waves for Thalia to speak because it’s her patroness that sent them out here, “The Mist is falling and Lady Artemis is offering shelter to the peaceful beings of the Wilds.”

“Yes, I noticed,” She twitches and it sends a ripple down her shiny auburn hair. There’s something very disconcerting about the way the woman hisses that out, “Spell crafting will be far more difficult now. I imagine my mother is furious. It’s too bad she’s chosen to side with Olympus. A little bit of praise for her and her…. _ children _ and she’ll even kneel to Queen Hera.”

The nagging feeling’s getting stronger but there’s no aggression or anger yet. Cas is tempted to try and get a look at the relaxing woman’s face but then she throws that thought right out the window, “This invitation is being extended from Lady Artemis not Hera.” And Thalia can’t quite keep the bite out of Hera’s name causing Cas to shift. It’s unfair but Thalia can get away with saying things like that while Cas cannot.

The woman raises her hand and absentmindedly picks at her nails-her long reptilian nails-and Cas checks another mental box. She’s not quite sure what for yet but that seems important, “That is some aggression towards the queen of Olympus,” Oh no, “Who are you two?” Nope. Names have power and she shakes her head at Thalia while mouthing ‘no’ over and over but this hard headed feral thinks she has it covered.

Cas is very certain that this is not a good idea, “I am Thalia Grace, Lieutenant for Artemis,” Don’t say it, “And daughter of Zeus.” The woman stiffens.

“Zeus!” Malaka…. “Zeus!” The woman with lizard claws stands and turns to face them, “You’re a child of Zeus!” Thalia really should know better by now. That’s not something that will ever win her favors with other females. Cas would like to say this outloud but she’s very distracted by the unnerving crocodile teeth and the distinct lack of eyes. There are eye sockets but no eyeballs.

What the fuck.

“I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding, Lady,” Cas says smoothly while stepping away from Thalia and having that rather unpleasant face lock straight onto her, “I’m Cassandra Stark, daughter of Nike, and we only came with the intent to help.”

“Help?” Cas’s words did not work but she doesn’t want to draw her weapon first, “Demigods? Coming to help me? Not very likely.” Alright, who is this wackjob? 

“We really are here to help,” Thalia’s trying but Cas is afraid that the ship has sailed. This isn’t one of the more animalistic creatures. This lady is sentient and resentful, “This area is too close to campers and hikers. You can’t stay without being bothered.”   
  
The woman snarls at Thalia, “If I’m not being bothered then how am I supposed to get my favorite meals courtesy of Hera,” Dammit, this is what Cas was worried about, “Whole children and the blood of young men.”

Oh.

Oh. Shit.

Ha….She wishes it was a basilisk.

They need time for Cas to come up with a plan and inform Thalia that she knows who it is that’s in front of them without giving it away.

Screw a plan, running would be smarter. It’s not like they need anything for a quest….but then she’d be leaving the park-goers to their fate and that’s hardly fair.

“That’s terribly unfortunate,” Cas has to bullshit her way out of this one. Hopefully, Thalia will follow her lead, “The mortals are quite attached to their children in this day and age. Any chance that I can convince you that blood banks are a better alternative.” She nods for Thalia to help her.

“Yes,” She nods in agreement with Cas even though this woman is blind, “At a blood bank you can choose age, gender, and even blood type.” No guarantee of minors being on the menu but there’s a definite chance of males under the age of twenty five.   


“Blood bank?” The woman tilts her head at that perfect horror movie angle, “Who would eat blood that isn’t fresh?” Oh gods…. “I think I’ll settle for you, daughter of Zeus, the other one is too old.” That is a compliment but sadly the bullshiting was a miss.

Okay….okay….plan before being attacked….she’s just going to go for it, “Lamia!” She ignores Thalia’s muffled ‘Oh fuck’ and continues on, “You loved Zeus and your children! Why eat one of his?” Please, Lamia. Please, do the thing and monologue to your scaly heart’s content.

“I did love Zeus!” Lamia shrieks while swinging a clawed hand through the air, “Then he let Hera curse me! I devoured my own children,” Yeah, Hera did that, “She made me do it with my eyes open and cursed me to never sleep again!”

Thalia has finally caught up with the program and has realized the level of shit they’ve waltzed right into, “Not to burst your bubble but Hera hates me too because my mother drew his eye twice. Killing me will not help you with that.”

She hisses, not like a snake but a crocodile, “I already got my revenge on Hera when I gifted monsters with better sight to hunt demigods,” What? “The only reason you’re so easy for them to track is because I made it so. Every child hero cut down is a result of that and it’s Hera’s fault.” Cas fails to see the connection there but Greeks and the blame game go way back.

“Bitch,” Cas is now trying to decide how best to kill this lady, “Those demigods were innocent!” If what she says is true then every demigod that died while simply trying to live their lives is on Lamia.

“So were my children!” Lamia rounds on Thalia again, “Zeus did nothing to punish Hera for what she did to me. He ‘eased my pain’ by letting me remove my own eyes so I could sleep and granted me another form but how did that make up for Altheia and Demetrius?” Probably not at all but Cas doesn’t know what Lamia was expecting. The gods can’t be held to the same standards as humans. It’s entirely meaningless and only ends in disappointment. Zeus’s eye wanders and then Hera punishes the woman that catches it. And the kid too usually.

Her eyes are still gone so Lamia is currently limited by sound and smell. Those need to stay gone in order for them to keep the advantage because Lamia is a child of Hecate. The last thing they need is for her to have sight to aim offensive spells at them. Cas starts looking around for an….eyeball container.

Cas also gives up on taking a vacation ever again. They don’t work out.

Gods, her heart weeps for this cursed woman but taking it out on demigods is so not a healthy coping mechanism for Lamia or for Cas.

“I can’t begin to comprehend your loss, Lamia, but offing demigods won’t bring back your children,” It’s unlikely to change her mind but it’s about keeping her talking.

Thalia waves a bit to get Cas’s attention and points to an godsdamned Mason jar not three feet to the right of Lamia balanced on the rocks and mud. It’s disgusting but there are green eyes with serpentine pupils floating around in there.

Okay, it’s so convenient that their opponent can’t see them right now. The downside is that Thalia’s shield will not work against her but a blind enemy has an ineffective ranged defense. Cas points at herself and then the eyes before holding up a hand for five seconds.

“No, but hurting Zeus is always a bonus. It’s why I supported Gaea,” Poor life choices, Zeus won’t do much seeing as he already turned Thalia into a tree once before and Gaea lost. This lady lost it which is probably why she’s hiding out in a park planning to eat campers and hikers.

Thalia starts the countdown since Cas will be the one moving. As an added bonus she also takes over the talking, “That’s bad luck right there. Gaea lost big time. Cassandra would know since she was involved.” She hits one as she finishes talking and before Lamia can respond Cas warps and kicks that Mason jar as hard as she can.

For this one….well, she isn’t entirely certain what she was expecting because the hope was that the jar would fly off into the woods and Lamia would chase it. Good Mason jars are usually pretty sturdy, she’s dropped them before and they were fine. This one explodes under the force of her kick and - she cannot confirm this because Cas isn’t checking but - she thinks one of the eyes did as well.

“What did you do?” Lamia screams and Cas doesn’t answer. She just takes off downstream to get some space, “My eyes! What did you do?”

“Cas keep moving!” Thalia yells behind her. What Cas does next is not for the inexperienced. Sprinting through the ungrowth of a developed forest requires a certain amount of attention so that one doesn’t harm themselves. For example, falling on one’s face enabling snake women to eat them is far from ideal.

But she knows what she’s doing so Cas looks back.

And immediately regrets it. 

She also figures out why Lamia lacked shoes. She doesn’t need them. Her torso remains humanoid but her lower half has transformed into a snake body as wide as a kayak and by the gods Lamia can move. Her snake body easily navigates the terrain and keeps her upright as she flails with her clawed hands pulling herself around trees and splintering them with her grip. Also, Lamia’s trajectory if fairly accurate all things considered so Cas comes to the conclusion that shattering a glass jar was a bad idea (her leg stings and it must be bleeding) because she’s leaving a trail.

Cas arcs around to the right hoping that Thalia has her bow out by now because she’s a godsdamed Huntress. This hope proves worthwhile as a silver tipped arrow whizzes past Cas’s face and buries itself in Lamia based on the sounds she’s making. She would love to be more helpful in this fight than leading Lamia on a merry chase while Thalia tries to kill her via magical arrows however Lamia is fast for a blind lady, those claws are no joke, and she’s magically proficient. Getting grabbed is out of the question and giving Lamia more than the barest hint of her location is ill advised.

“Hold still!” Ha. Hard pass. She likes living. There’s another scream of pain and Cas imagines that there’s another arrow sticking out of this lady. It really doesn’t seem to be slowing her down but this is a former demigod, cursed by Hera, ‘blessed’ by Zeus, and gifted in magic. If Cas can be described as durable then Lamia must be like an OtterBox TM . Either that or Thalia isn’t hitting anything remotely important on the monster chasing her.

“Xena!” Please, give her a sign that this is under control….because it’s starting to feel a bit like a runaway train. Thalia remains silent which realistically is pretty fair. Lamia was more interested in eating Thalia than Cas before and Cas doesn’t have much range in fighting. Good news is that Thalia chooses then to land a far more effective hit. She would even go so far as to say super effective by the shriek and thud behind her. Her stride carries her another ten yards before Cas comes to stop and turns around to see Lamia writhing on the ground with an arrow sticking out of her eye socket.

The witch is still freaking alive...

Lamia drags herself back up but leaves the arrows in place including the one protruding from her face.

Ha.

Ha….She’s going to rate this as a five point five out of ten on her freaky scale. For reference, a Chirauri was like a three but their buses were more like a seven.

Using her spear, Cas carefully moves another few yards to the side so that she’s off whatever trace blood trail she's left in her wake. Lamia should be disoriented and confused but Thalia hasn’t taken another shot yet and Cas is a little curious about why.

That is...until the lightning bolt strikes her right in the silver arrow and leaves Cas blinking away spots from the power of it.

Damn….Cas turns to Thalia, “Why didn’t you open with that?” She wasn’t afraid while being chased by Lamia through the woods because she didn’t think for one second that she’d be caught. Thalia is also completely trustworthy. However, she would like a reason for why she was pursued by a snake woman through the woods when she could have been zapped from the start.

“You know how it is,” Cas really doesn’t, “I’d rather use Huntress skills first and I felt a little bad. The woman was screwed over by my dad.” Yeah, yeah. Maybe it would have been a little heavy handed to come at her with lightning first.

“Fine,” Cas plops down on her ass and starts poking at her leg, “Help me get the glass out.”

“I thought we were going to leverage the eyes,” And what? Befriend her?

That was never going to happen after Cas realized that she cursed demigods to have it even more difficult, “That possibility ended the moment you told her who your father is.” She wonders if Britomartis is going to show up even though they killed the monster they were supposed to smuggle to the mythological wildlife preserve.

Whatever. Cas wants to go back to civilization now.

~~~

Britomartis does not show.

They end up driving to Camp Half-Blood because they need to talk to someone about what just happened even if it turns into an almost six hour drive in a car that belongs to neither of them. It’s just….Chiron is a much needed voice of reason right now. So, while it was annoying to be bombarded with baby demigods and a lot of really fast questions on the way there, Cas loses like 35% of her current stress when she gets lemonade from her mentor.

“And you’re both certain it was Lamia?” Why is it that people always time questions for while the other person’s mouth is full? Whatever, it’s probably a conspiracy and Chiron doesn’t really want her to speak.

Thalia does instead, “Yeah, who would’ve thought. She was a holdout from the Gigantomachy.” And she never got involved, never attacked the camps, and never interfered with the quest. Cas wonders if Lamia ever really intended to side with Gaea or just wanted a good seat to watch it all burn from. She came across more like spite than vengefulness. It’s easy to understand vengeance but spite is another beast altogether.

He hums thoughtfully from his spot on the Big House porch, “Strange that you should find her now though.” Ha. That’s a wonderful joke.

Cas has managed to swallow so she responds, “It’s us Chiron. Are you really surprised we came back from an outing wishing that it was a basilisk?”

“Cassandra,” He smiles, “It’s never a basilisk. But I have to agree that if there was an unexpected surprise in the woods throwing you two at it would draw it out.” It’s like they’re the equivalent of one Percy. “I’m glad to see that there were no injuries.” Her leg is bandaged but it’s clean and not worth worrying about. She does subtly cross her other leg over it and pull it closer.

“We are the best,” She toasts the air with her lemonade, “By the way….” Cas trails off.

“Yes,” Chiron takes a casual sip of his own drink. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know who’s been running interference for us online, would you?” She says and Chiron doesn’t so much as blink. The damn Centaur plays cards with Dionysus so he has a killer poker face but come on, “The cutsie videos,” Thalia snorts but Cas pretends not to hear, “The history lessons.”

“Hmmm...oh yes, I did see those,” Dammit Chiron, “I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea where they came from,” Uh-huh, sure he doesn’t, “Jarvis couldn’t help find the origin?” Thalia is snickering by the way because she is also perfectly aware that Chiron knows who did it….stupid horse was probably complicit but Cas would have appreciated a heads up.

Cas nearly grits her teeth, “Jarvis believes that the origin of the signal uploads was somewhere in the NY tri-state area.” Not very helpful because it's a very populous region of the country but if demigod populations are being considered then it narrows it down. If Jarvis couldn’t get a more detailed location for her then magic probably disrupted things.

“What a shame,” Of course it is Chiron, “Whoever it was did you quite a service.” 

She nods in agreement, “They did. Nearly gave poor Ms. Allard a heart attack,” She smiles a bit, “At first she thought it was me but yes it was surprisingly well received by the public.” There’s the tiniest twitch that gives away Chiron’s amusement, “Thanks, Chiron. The help is appreciated.”

“I’ll be sure to pass along your gratitude, Dr. Stark.” Whatever you say, Chiron, “For now both of you should get some rest. Your cabins are always open to you.” Before Cas can leave Chiron has one more thing to add, “By the way, I’ve finished with the Index list you sent me,” Her stomach drops, “We burned eleven shrouds. Two were Roman,” Cas sighs but nods in acceptance. At least they’ve been honored. Then there’s a round of goodnights before they both wander off to shower and sleep. Tomorrow Cas gets to tell her father that she was correct in that it wasn’t a basilisk but it was still a stupid hunt. It’s possible Cas just isn’t meant to take vacations.

~~~

This is proven a fact in the morning because there’s a kid she’s never met before banging on the door to her cabin. A quick check of her phone reveals it’s 7:15 which is fifteen minutes earlier than she was planning on gracing the world with her presence.

She has no knowledge of this little boy as she swings the door open causing him to step back and gape, “Can I help you?” Cas doesn’t mean to be intimidating but this small human woke her before she wanted to be woken.

“Sorry, Ms. Cassandra,” Okay fine, her heart melts over what she thinks is a nine year old sent to get her, “But Mr. Chiron said they need you at the Big House. There was something on the news.”

She rubs the sleep from her eyes with one hand, “Thanks kid,” Her desire to protect demigods doesn’t stop her from slamming the door in his face. If there’s something on the news that she needs to see then it’s probably not a good thing.

It only takes Cas ten minutes to get there and even though she could have figured out what’s happening on her phone she waits until she gets to the tv room to face the mortal world for the day. There are more cabin heads trickling and they greet her while they sit but Cas just leans against the wall and tries to figure out how this is going to change the way things are progressing.

_ Bombing in Civilian Sector _

Gods….it was a pointless stupid hope but there was a small part of Cas’s mind that believed people would have changed their priorities after being attacked by aliens. No one’s claimed responsibility for the attack yet but there are more innocent people dead and whatever zealots did this will probably give some inadequate reason for committing murder.

There’s footage of the explosion and images of the aftermath….it’s awful.

“Cas?” She locks eyes with Malcolm who’s sitting on the other side of the room, “Is this going to affect us?” Poorly timed but she understands his focus.

It’s a complicated question with a complicated answer. Some of that will have to wait until they find out who did it and why. Terrorism has a nastly habit of making Americans xenophobic and while the vast majority of demigods are Americans there are notable exceptions. Paolo is one and Cas thinks that there’s a girl from Hong Kong that arrived recently. Regardless, they’re the new kids on the block so to speak and if people get nervous around them then things get complicated.

There’s also the necessary shows of control and strength from the government. A bombing just happened and in May there was an alien attack on US soil that was handled mainly by people that are not US military. To show stability the government may flex their muscles over something that’s in reach in order to reassure the American people that everything is well in hand.

It’s going to accelerate the government’s stalled response to the demigods. Everything was going so well too other than some naysayers but honestly Cas was told not to anticipate any big moves until the end of the summer and maybe even the fall. The priority is rightfully on recovery in New York City which Cas has made sure they inserted themselves into.

This is an unexpected variable.

Still, “Yeah, it will. Can’t say for sure if it’s positive or negative yet but expect things to get moving again.” Like they even had a chance to slow down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was asked by someone why I like Percy Jackson so much recently. It was really a strange question because what's not to like about the book series with magic and monsters and puns.
> 
> But I really thought about it anyway. I couldn't think of single huge reason for my love of the series or the fandom until later when I read one of the articles about Rick Riordan and how he wanted to represent the kids in his classroom with his stories. That's when I got it.
> 
> I am bi-racial. That in and of itself isn't overly extraordinary but then I realized that I view the demigods as bi-racial like me. It's....hard sometimes. When I was growing up in a small very white town with a dad named Carlos I was like one of the diversity check marks. However, it didn't work like that because I have almost zero connection to my father's culture and heritage. I don't speak Spanish, I have an Irish name, and I barely know my father's side of the family.
> 
> I look like I should though according to the people who speak languages at me like I should know them. Evidently, because I have an Irish-American mother and a Hispanic father, I look like I should know Spanish, Arabic, Italian, and once even Hindi. It's flattering in a way but embarrassing and even frustrating to have people speak at you with the expectation that you'll understand. Then there's the people who ask 'where are you from?' or 'where is your family from?' My dudes, I am from NJ. That's all. 
> 
> Then I went to a regional high school and that changed everything. I wasn't white enough for some of the white kids. They were never openly racist or discriminatory but it was like there was a barrier there. I wasn't Hispanic enough for the Latino kids. It was really disconcerting to be told my whole life 'yes, you are Hispanic' and then be totally rejected by the 'real' Latinos.
> 
> I connect to the demigods because they are half one thing and half another and though so many of them try so hard they almost never fit with the mortals or the gods. To see Percy spend so much of the first series having no clue who the mythological figures are even though he's a demigod and he should know it is so relatable. To see Annabeth struggle to connect to her step family because she feels too different is something that I related to. Frank Zhang not actually speaking Chinese and struggling with the Chinese handcuffs was the epitome of relatability for me.
> 
> The demigods on a whole come across as bi-racial to me. 
> 
> To anyone who actually stopped to read this note, why did you connect to Rick Riordan's demigod world?


	15. ...Is that Supposed to Be Intimidating?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This monster of a chapter is brought to you two and half hours early by @browneyedgenius who wrote such a kind couple of comments that put me in such a good writing mood.
> 
> In considered splitting it in half but then thought nah....why add another chapter?
> 
> This is a very full chapter with regards to dropping plot on you guys. I really tried to tie as much up in a bow before we start IM3 on Monday. That was so freaking hard to write because there isn't a lot plot wise that I wanted to change so slipping Cas in there was tricky. I think I did it though so we'll have to see what you guys think. Fingers crossed.

Cas is confused.

She doesn’t like to be confused. And she very much doesn’t like when the source of her confusion refuses to be understood or provide any form of clarification. 

The source of her confusion is her father. She got back from Camp Half-Blood just fine and there was minimal concern over her already healed injury (Helen’s eyes actually fucking sparkled, “Can I culture your cells?” “Clear it with the Queen and we’ll talk.”) but that was all. There wasn’t even any color commentary on her baiting an angry monster on a merry chase though the woods.

He just sort of accepted it with a ‘good job, hero’ and left it at that. Good job, hero? Thus began her confusion because he’s being distant and they aren’t doing lab time or workshop time or any kind of time.

It’s been weeks. Pepper told her to give him space but she doesn’t know what for. He’s still having date nights with Pepper so they’re fine but Cas doesn’t know what she did wrong that has her father pulling away. Even worse is that they’re planning on going back west at the end of August which Cas did suggest in the first place but she’s been advised (Pepper told her in her office while sitting across from her and her father wasn’t in the room.) to stay in New York for the time being.

Cas hasn’t put up a fuss. She’s been far too busy to do that given that there’s only been stirrings of what the Capital plans to do regarding the demigod problem. Not even President Ellis has said anything about them but it is an election year and he’s been keeping focus on how well the New York cleanup has been handled. 

She just doesn’t understand why her father is acting like this. When they need to be together for whatever meeting or thingy everything looks perfect as always. But if it’s perfect then why haven’t they had any them time? Cas loves them time and she thought that her father did too but maybe he changed his mind.

It’s why she corners Rhodey about it under the guise of a lunch break and her honorary uncle got this very aggrieved face after she finished listing her concerns, “Okay, number one, Cassie you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why do I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around him!” She’s still allowed in said lab space but it feels stilted and awkward like she isn’t wanted in there. Sure, she’s able to stay updated on what her father’s up to. Jarvis has been great about that but her father has found the time to make a Mark XXII and she didn’t get to make any sort of design input which is really disconcerting. Not because she didn’t get to work on one of her father’s suits(that’s not a big deal; it’s not like he touches all of her projects) but because of the suit’s purpose and designation ‘Hotrod.’ It was designed with the potential to be an upgrade to War Machine for Rhodey. War Machine gets input from Rhodey, Cas, and her father. That’s how that works….or it’s how it used to work.

Rhodey seems to have figured out something that Cas has not and she’s supremely grateful that someone understands her concerns because Pepper and Happy have taken the silently supportive route. Here she is trying to figure out what’s wrong so that she can fix it, “How were you after your first real exposure to live combat?” What? That takes the wind out her metaphorical sails.

Ummmm….“Busy?” Her first real battle was after Kronos took Luke’s body. Then well….everyone knows what happened next.

He nods, “And before that you’d played all of those training games in the woods?” Capture the Flag, Kill the Carrier, Hide and Seek, Scavenger Hunts, and Manhunt all have demigod versions that are not safe for ordinary children. Calling them training is probably a fair turn of phrase since control and applied learning were used to win. Lateral thinking was encouraged through alliances and rule bending. It was a simpler time.

That doesn’t mean that she understands where Rhodey is going with this, “You could call them that,” but she nods along anyway.

“So you had practice in simulated battlefields with objectives,” It’s not a question but she nods along anyway, “And this was far from your first fight against….non-human opponents.” And she nods again. Cas has fought more non-human opponents than human ones.

But she’s already finished her eggplant parm and she’s getting impatient, “Are you going somewhere with this? Or are you just going to keep listing facts?”

“Just...let me think,” He covers his eyes with his hands before shaking his head, “I did not sign on to play family therapist.” And now Cas feels like shit.

She throws her napkin on the table, “Look, if it’s a problem I can just pay so we can-”

He grabs her arm before she can get up. If he were anyone other than family that display would be met with violence but it’s Rhodey, “That’s not what I meant, Cassie, sit down,” His tone is serious and he has the whole responsible adult aura going on so Cas complies, “What I meant is that you and Tones are complicated but you’re family. I just need to make sure I say this right.” She’s all ears if he has answers for her, “Alright, I know this is a topic that makes you uncomfortable but I think we can all agree that you qualify as a warrior with an olden days code of honor and heroics.” He waves his hand around like it’s something to be accepted not debated.

“Gee, thanks,” She rolls her eyes, “I love having my dangerous nature thrown in my face.” At least he didn’t say soldier or weapon because that’s not what she is.

“It’s not a bad thing,” He’s quick to reassure her, “It’s definitely had a positive impact on Tony. You’re great,” Whatever, “But you’re father isn’t like that.”

He probably didn’t intend to put her on the defensive but, “Dad’s a hero.”

Rhodey just shakes his head, “Never said he wasn’t but he’s a civilian.”

What? She shall tick the reasons that statement is false off on her fingers, “Afghanistan, Stane, terrorists with stolen weapons, Vanko, and now the Chitauri.” That’s leaving out his response to Santa Barbara and Elias as well as the stuff he’s done in conjunction with the army.

“All of which he handled to the best of his ability without formal training.”

That takes her aback just a bit, “So you only count as a real fighter when you’ve had training?” That’s a weird mindset, “Should we sign the old man up for krav maga or something?” She doesn’t see how that would help him. Then again she still doesn’t see what’s wrong with him only that something is wrong.

“No,” He sighs, “How can you be so smart but miss this?”

She wrinkles her nose in annoyance, “Maybe you’re a crappy teacher.”

And he sighs again, “Let’s try something else,” Please, because this one isn’t helping, “Why did you keep the younger demigods out of New York during the invasion?” Random….

She’ll answer him and see where this leads, “A few reasons. I didn’t want the kids in the fight. They’re young and they shouldn’t have to see that. We had enough people so there was no need to lower the minimum age. Also, I knew that our exposure was inevitable if we got involved. Literal child warriors weren't going to win us any points in the aftermath.” It was a good call as was letting the kids come and help later. There was a clean visual hierarchy established and it humanized them further.

“Back to that first reason,” Alright Rhodey, “Why shouldn’t they have had to see the battle? They’re demigods, right? Eventually they’re going to get into trouble so they should be able to handle it.” 

That’s dumb, “Just because they can doesn’t mean that they should have to. I’m not going to throw them in the deep end if they don’t have the experience or the mental-” She pauses and then groans into her hands, “Stupid! I didn’t even consider-”

“It’s kind of cute actually,” What? She peers through her fingers at Rhodey who is smirking at her. Genuine smirking, “You look up to your dad, Cassie. There’s nothing wrong with that but you forgot for a moment that he’s human. I saw the footage of that fight and frankly I’ll be surprised if the other ‘Avengers,’” He rolls his eyes because he agrees with her about the name, “don’t have some problems after that too.”

Whatever, the other people aren’t important right now, “Then how do I help. I already suggested that finding a person to talk at helps but we both know that’s not going to be me.” Cas thought he would just need a bit of time to get past the battle and what he experienced with the wormhole. Obviously, the mind takes as much time as it needs but he’s worse (?) than he was initially. Or maybe he’s slipping about hiding how he was? Did she miss her dad being sick again?

Rhodey gets that aggrieved face again, “When was that?” Then he dismisses it, “Doesn’t matter. The point is Tony knows you look at him like he’s a hero.”

“Because he is,” She interjects.

“Yes, we all know that. Just...stop for a minute,” Rhodey is the second most patient person in their odd little family. Number one is Pepper given the amount of time she spends with Cas and her father without blowing up. Happy tries…, “If he’s not doing well in handling what he’s been through do you think for one second he’s going to risk damaging that image you have of him?”

“No…” But then what is she supposed to do?

Rhodey leans back now that he’s gotten through to her, “I should have noticed sooner. Probably when he mentioned how weird it was that you were already back to ‘normal’ routines like nothing changed.” What? Nothing’s back to normal but she has balanced her scales out to get a stable, if very full, routine going.

Is this in reference to her hunting trip with Thalia? In that case, “Should I be less...adjusted?” Cas doesn't know how she could go about doing that but she does want some sort of equilibrium with her father.

The makes Rhodey laugh, “Absolutely not, the best thing you can do for your father is be available but not in his face,” That’s what she’s been doing and that doesn’t feel like enough, “I’ll keep an eye on him, Cassie. I know what to look for.”

In her frustration she can’t stop herself from saying, “Like you did for the palladium.”

He doesn’t flinch or react outwardly, “That was uncalled for, Cassandra,” She averts her eyes feeling a little bit guilty, “But I will keep a closer watch, okay? Tony will be fine. We just need to make sure he knows he’s not alone,” She opens her mouth to retort, “Which you have. Now, tell me about Team Science that you’ve been putting together.”

She’d rather talk about how Rhodey is going to keep an eye on her father when the military is gearing up for the manhunt of this Mandarin who claimed responsibility for the bombing a few weeks ago. Since America needs to look strong they’ll probably put War Machine at the front of the charge. He’s definitely a ‘big stick’ but he’s also a precise and moral one. However, she respects Rhodey too much to fight him on the topic change, “Rather than stick my head in the sand and rely on the supreme luck that our heroes are always there to protect us, I’m putting big brains on the final frontier problem.”

He raises one brow at her and waits but Cas doesn’t squirm, “Are you planning on founding StarFleet too?”

That would be so godsdamned cool, “Why? You want to enlist?”

A smile tugs at the side of his mouth, “Depends, are we talking about the original TV series or the reboot?”

Cas goes full scandalized complete with her hand to her chest, “As if I would insult you with anything less than the best.” Chris, Carl, and Zachary did their best in 2009 but they missed out on the nuanced story telling and power the original had. Zoe tried but she did not compare to the power move of Nichelle Nichols playing Uhura on the bridge of the USS Enterprise circa 1963, “Sadly, I will not get to be Chief Engineer of a star ship but phoning Asgard and putting a lock on Earth’s front door is a possibility.”

“A phone and a lock?” What does he sound so surprised about? “That’s it?”

Wait.... “Oh...yeah, that’s all I’m going for,” Technically speaking it’s what Dr. Foster is going for while Cas happily contributes to the research more on the engineering side than the astronomy. She can’t believe the stuff Dr. Foster was originally working with and the things she put together on her own. It’s like meeting a kindred spirit but the resources available now far outstrip what she had in the past.

...tangents again.

Stupid brain.

“No Lone Ranger hero stuff?” The skepticism is hurtful.

She indulges Rhodey anyway because he’s been so helpful today, “I wasn’t lying when I said we weren’t looking to poke our noses where they don’t belong,” Cas wants to help but she really isn’t looking for anymore fights….even if Zeus says she has one on the way. Maybe it’ll be in like 50-60 years and she can just sit back and watch, “I’d much rather work with Helen and Bruce on our tissue regeneration project.” Cas has yet to find a field that Bruce doesn’t know something about.

He’s brilliant and awesome….and she’s so glad that they kept him. At least Bruce is staying in New York.

Rhodey finally believes her after that, “It is so weird looking at you next to Tony sometimes.”

Okay…, “Not really. I’m used to the idea of dividing the big important tasks between others. Dad took responsibility for so much stuff alone,” She stops him with a hand before he can interrupt her, “I do too but I also happily dumped work on you, on the Romans, and on Dr. Foster.” Dr. Foster was planning on doing stuff anyway but Cas gave her resources and a direction.

He cringes and his ear is probably still ringing from running interference for her with one general or another, “General Ross is not your biggest fan.” Oh yeah, that guy….

Actually, “Do you know anything about him?” When Cas mentioned his name Bruce lost several shades of color before he recovered. She let it pass but also promised that the man would have to roll a tank down 5th Avenue before he’d be welcome in Stark Tower. There was a subject change after that and Cas made a note for Jarvis to divert any mentions of Ross in Bruce’s presence. She was tempted to have Jarvis dig for a connection but that felt too invasive given that Bruce is drifting from acquaintance to friend. If he ever feels like sharing they can talk about it.

Rhodey shrugs, “He’s the Lieutenant General of the United States army and has a Congressional Medal of Honor.” He looks at her like that should mean something and after a beat realizes that she’s going to need some elaboration. Cas avoided military stuff for a very long time and while the terms are familiar some context would be appreciated, “He’s a three star general - out of five so don’t ask - and that medal is awarded by the President with Congressional approval for outstanding valor.”

That’s pretty prestigious but it doesn’t answer her Bruce conundrum, “So his blood, sweat, and tears are red, white, and blue. That’s what I’m getting from this.”

He wavers a bit in the face of her analysis, “In a perfect world I’d agree with you but it takes a certain amount of drive and ambition to get to that kind of rank.” Right, Cas can understand that. He’s a driven and potentially power hungry Uncle Sam. That merits a close eye….maybe she will have to press Bruce but only if the general in question doesn’t back up, “He also took an interest in your father not long before you came into the picture,” What? That catches her interest, “It didn’t last but he was involved in the incident with the Congolese Army.” Oh….that was a while ago.

She tilts her head, “That was Ross? Pepper mentioned another name in passing.” Cas wasn’t really in the loop at the time.

Rhodey nods, “That would be General Turner. He’s Pentagon.” Ah, the sneak suits and scary people with access to the doomsday buttons. He seems to consider something before speaking, “You’re probably old enough for this one,” She was probably old enough for this story when she was thirteen, “A prototype single-man vehicle was shot down by the Congolese army. Your father was asked to retrieve it only they told him it was malfunctioning stealth tech. No mention of a pilot or hostiles. They hoped that he would return fire in self-defense which would eliminate their witness problem.”

“That’s disgusting,” But her lips twitch just a little, “Dad bent the truth on that one a tiny bit. I knew he saved a pilot and that he was fired on but the mafia generals were left out.” It puts a smudge on his transparency accolade but at the same time undermining the integrity of the US military over the actions of two generals could be taken as excessive. Cas can see the merit of having this black mark waiting in the wings to be thrown at them in the event that they go too far again….she’s matured a bit over the years.

“They’re not perfect, Cassie,” That’s also true. There must be some merit to these men if they made it that far up the food chain, “But don’t act like the demigods are. You’ve told me about Edward Teach and Sciron.”

And she wasn’t going to do that but, “And I’ve also told you about Harriet Tubman and William Sherman.” Sherman has a statue with Cas’s mother on it in Central Park, “I totally get that people are complicated. It’s possible to be great without being good.” She’ll tolerate a great general that’s just an okay human being or even a crummy one so long as he doesn’t go overboard.

Rhodey seems to realize the landmine that he’s just wandered into, “I am not getting into a discussion about morality and the human condition with you.” She grins because he’s the one that brought it up, “Ross is a decorated and respected general but you should still be careful.” Pshhh, she’s been careful for a long time and it’s starting to chafe. Cas just wants to be. 

They pay and leave not long after that without any problems or curious people so Cas leaves a very nice tip for their waitress. It was supposed to be the end of her relaxation for the day (if that conversation counts as a break) but when has Cas ever been limited to one extra exhausting event per day. She was supposed to be heading back to the tower for...something. She forgot but she knows when she’s supposed to be there and that’s the important part.

Only there’s a man, an entirely unknown dude, leaning against her car. It’s August and even Cas will concede to the need for air conditioning over the freedom of a motorcycle with it’s extra needed layers. This guy is not dressed for summer. Jeans and a too warm looking jacket combined with sunglasses imply business or it could be the gun on his belt.

Rhodey spotted the gun too by the arm he immediately put in front of her. Cas is more curious than concerned though, “Buddy, that is not your car.” And just because she can, she unlocks it with her phone much to Rhodey’s exasperation. It’s not like this guy is in a position to steal it. There’s witnesses everywhere and worst comes to worst Cas will defend herself.

“Dr. Stark,” It’s not surprising that she’s been recognized, “My name is Douglas Kennedy with the U.S. Marshals office.” Oh...huh that’s….unexpected. Then he pulls an envelope from the inside of his jacket, “This is a subpoena ordering you to appear before an emergency senate committee in two days at 9 AM.” Deja fucking vu.

It’s possible that Cas takes a little bit of satisfaction in moving faster than she typically allows herself to when she snatches the subpoena from this guy’s waiting hand. The Marshal pulls back but it only puts him in closer proximity to her property. Moron, there were better ways to do this like going through Stark Industries channels and not trying to ambush her like she’s her father.

If the world at large begins to treat her like her old man there’s going to be a problem. They are two different people with different approaches to authority. However, Cas can’t do much in this exact moment because Rhodey is here and they’re in public. Rhodey chooses to make himself very known, “Can I see some ID?” He’s using the all business voice.

The agent in question casually pulls out his badge and his identification. Kennedy’s authenticity was never in question but Rhodey’s pulling a bit of a power play which is fine. She appreciates it and anyone else would have done the same thing if they were with her….probably. Cas can think of several demigods that may have laughed in her face at this.

“Great,” She says with a grin before entirely dismissing the man as irrelevant, “Rhodey, you coming back with me?”

“You’re damn right I am,” She has the best uncle.

~~~

There are times where Cas is grateful for Jarvis’s intuitive nature and other times where she’s annoyed by it,  _ “Miss, I have informed Ms. Potts of your encounter today and she is waiting for you on the 65th floor with Mr. Becker.” _ This time it’s the former because it saves her the trouble of explaining what happened and potentially ranting about how this came about.

“Thank you, Jarvis. You and I are doing hangout time later.” Hangout time with Jarvis really amounts to science, music, and snippy comments but it’s a good time. It also leads to Mario Kart 64 even if he’s a cheater(there’s no way he gets star power that many times). She glances over at Rhodey, “You going my way or are you looking for dad?” It could go either way but it might be better if Cas walks this particular plank on her own.

“I’ll head up to get Tony first,” Not exactly unexpected. Rhodey has no business getting involved in her legal matters as of now but his support next to the marshal was appreciated, “If you need us we’ll be down.” Her father on the other hand will probably make an appearance at some point or maybe he won’t and he’ll let her handle this like the big girl she is.

Truthfully, she wouldn’t mind either way.

Doesn’t mean she’s happy with the turn of events.

So when she walks into the office and throws the subpoena on the table like it’s a snake Cas doesn’t bother to hide her annoyance, “This stupid thing is only for me.” None of the other demigods or other beings that are in the open have been mentioned. People know that Cas was raised by a Mr. Brunner but no one is summoning or looking for him. She already asked.

Which means some genius (sarcasm) in DC has decided to call on just Cassandra Stark to speak for everyone connected to Olympus.

Were they even paying attention? They’ve put so much work in establishing the difference between the Greeks and the Romans so one of them should’ve been contacted at the very least. Then there’s the fact that Cas speaks for Greek demigods….fuck.

Mr. Becker looks distinctly uncomfortable at her outburst. Generally speaking she’s a bit more composed around him given that he’s essentially leading the legal charge on her behalf. Thank the gods that Pepper is in the room to shut Cas up, “Calm down, Cassie.” Or try to anyway.

“Calm down?” She’s rightfully frustrated, “They’ve clearly disregarded everything that we’ve been doing if this ‘emergency committee’ only wants to talk to me.”

Pepper only crosses her arms and stares Cas down, “We’ve been expecting something like this so the exclusion of other demigods is not why you’re upset.”

Isn’t it?

No….she’s mad that they felt the need to try and isolate and corner her like they did to her father outside of the Expo in 2010, “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s true and…” And what? “And belittling.” She’s offended on behalf of the others but yes she did see something like this coming. After how well all of them did together before the media it wouldn’t make sense to bare down on them together.

“I’m more annoyed at the power play outside of the restaurant,” Preach Pepper, “You’re not Tony and the world knows that.” Cas visibly relaxes and takes a seat at the table now that she knows someone understands why she’s so annoyed.

“I don’t think that move came across as what they meant it to,” Mr. Becker finally speaks now that Cas is more annoyed silence than pacing lion.

She waits for him to continue but Pepper doesn’t, “How so? This is almost exactly what they did to Tony before the Senate Arms Committee tried to take Iron Man.”

The man in question takes a moment before placing his hands on the table, “The demigods have been hiding in plain sight for centuries. Right now, New York is recovering from an attack that was successfully repelled due in part to the efforts of these hidden beings,” Cas wonders if he plans on cutting to the chase soon, “But recently there was a terror bombing and they cannot find a trace of the person who did it. They’re trying to prove that here, within the borders of the United States, nothing can hide from them.”

Oh wow...seriously? “I’m not hiding. I haven’t been hiding since all of this took off. You’re the one who told me to make sure I look and act like a normal human around other people.” She thinks she did pretty well and it’s why Cas was so comfortable going out to lunch with Rhodey today.

“That’s absolutely true but this is about appearances, Dr. Stark.”

Ugh, “Fine,” Deep breaths Cassandra, “What do I do?”

The man seems completely in his element now, “Today we are going to run through questions that they are likely to ask you,” Reasonable, “And tomorrow you are going to DC so that you appear ready and respectable.” Ummm…

“Negatory,” She’s got issues with that second bullet point.

“Cas-” Pepper does not.

She holds up her hands anyway, “Hear me out first,” And wow, Cas does not deserve that put upon expression that Pepper is making, “I did nothing wrong and there’s no need for me to sit outside their door and wait for them to speak to me when they’re the ones that summoned me.” She holds eye contact with both of the people in the room, “I will fly down in two days. I will be on time but not too early.” Cas will be bright eyed and awake. She will be respectful and honest but she will not be there a moment longer than she strictly needs to.

Mr. Becker thinks it over before nodding, “It’s brazen but for what you’re looking to project it should work.” Wonderful.

She pulls out her phone to pretty much cancel any and all of the things that she would rather be doing for the next two days, “Let’s get started.”

It takes hours.

They have to order take out and Cas consumes frightening amounts of caffeine throughout the process. The man is essentially drilling her on any word traps that the committee may try to lure her into so there are certain rules to be followed. She can’t interrupt no matter how frustrating they are. In fact, showing any anger or frustration at all is a no go.

“So I’m pretending to go up against Koh the Face-Stealer.”

“Who?”

“He’s a character,” From only the greatest cartoon ever, “….he steals the faces from people who show emotion in front of him.”

“Ah,” She may have thrown Mr. Becker off kilter a little bit, “No emotion would be just as bad as too much. Avoid being too much for them as well.” So, she’s got to keep it balanced like a jedi.

Any answers to any questions she provides must be short and to the point. Clear but with as few words as possible. That is not an easy set of instructions. Her responses have to be comprehensive but not too long so that no one can misinterpret or twist what she has to say. Only small and manageable pieces of information should be offered at a time.

It makes sense but this is a different kind of stressful than any of the other situations she’s gotten herself into. Before, failure resulted in death which is awful but it’s not like her people are going anywhere other than Elysium. Failure here could result in lifelong persecution, restrictions to their freedoms, and a lot of dead dreams.

That’s very much not good.

Pepper leaves and comes back when she can but the Queen is the CEO so she’s busy. It’s not until much later in the night that her father shows up trailed by Rhodey, “I heard the mini-god got called to the principal’s office.” She sighs but a glance at Rhodey has her going along with it.

“I’m fully primed to rage against the machine,” She says even as she shakes her head at Mr. Becker to reassure him that she will not actually be doing anything stupid. There’s too much at stake for Cas to do what she wants to do simply because she can.

The night devolves from there but maybe Rhodey said the right thing to her father because it feels like he’s really in the room again instead of straining to go somewhere else.

~~~

They haven’t even started talking yet and Cas has an ice pick headache behind her left eye. It’s more likely due to the fact that someone (Pepper) took her coffee away citing bathroom concerns if she has too much. Fine. It’s a good enough reason but Cas needs the bean juice.

That in conjunction with the oh so famous Pennsylvania senator staring her down has Cas wishing to be almost anywhere else. She’d rather be in a Shield facility than sitting before Senator Stern right now. Honestly, she’s not even surprised that this is the guy that chose to spearhead the movement against her and the other demigods. Her father humiliated him and then rubbed his face in it two years ago. Guys like Stern don’t forget those kinds of slights.

So here Cas is seated before a panel of individuals that are unlikely to say much while this powerhouse of a congressman tries to make Cas recriminate herself before the American people. Ugh….C’est la vie. Behind her is a very packed room. There’s no demigods here that she knows of but her mortal family is present including Rhodey which is a risk for him.

At some point during her casual staring contest with the senator a nonverbal cue causes the room to quiet down. Stern breaks eye contact with her to bang his gavel, “Good morning, the emergency committee hearing is called to order. Welcome to the witnesses who are here. This year our great country has be rocked by a set of revelations which have drastically altered our understanding of what it means to be human,” Oh dear, they will be going there today, “We have been given the answer to the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe but that is not why we are here. We are here to investigate the existence of a group of enhanced individuals living in secret among the American people.” Yep, they’re going there. It’s not like she expected anything less.

He speaks for a few minutes using some pretty solid visuals of the demigods at work in New York City. There’s nothing wrong per say. Some are images of demigods with civilians, some are with local law enforcement, and some are with federal and military personnel. He did his due diligence. However, he’s throwing around words like ‘young’ and ‘trained’ and ‘dangerous’ (not that they’re dangerous but that what they were doing was dangerous) with images of people Cas’s age and younger doing things like lifting rubble that would take a team of baseline humans to move.

“In the weeks following their emergence from obscurity there have been sightings and recordings of unusual beings….” Yes, in the crazy Cas almost forgot that some bikers in Texas had a run in with the Party Ponies. Of all the mythological beings for humans to have a direct first encounter with the Fraternity Centaurs were not her first choice. They are far from the worst possible outcome though. There was some general confusion from the public who’d come to the conclusion that all demigod activity was limited to California and New York.

The bikers had a good time after they stopped panicking and talked to the centaurs. Also, it was a fun interview(false) for Cas to explain that state borders do not hold back magic and yep, guys like them are everywhere. 

“Under extraordinary circumstances, these individuals risked their lives to defend this great nation,” Gods….she has to listen to this with a straight face, “But now we are faced with difficult questions. Who or what they are? Where did they come from? Why were they hiding? And what do we do now that they are among us?” All of these questions have already been answered to the public so Cas has to wonder where he’s planning on going with this. Public opinion has largely been in favor of the demigods due in part to the fact that Cas is household name but also because of their efforts in New York, “The purpose of this hearing is to answer these questions. Before we begin, Dr. Stark, is there anything you would like to say.” Wow….she doesn’t want to innately accuse this man of anything even if she dislikes him on principle but it is clever of him to be polite with her if he intends to get her to undermine herself.

It would be an intimidating prospect if she hadn’t stood before things that would literally melt his grey matter, “Yes, I would like to clarify that I can only speak on behalf of known Greek demigods in New York. Any other demigods or beings are beyond my zone of influence and anything I have to say cannot be guaranteed accurate for them.” They will not all be lumped together in one universal category. The world doesn’t work that way. In the future it might be impossible to distinguish between Greek and Roman demigods but for now they need to be kept separate. Also, she refuses to take the blame when a baseline human makes the mistake of pissing off something from their ‘secret world.’

“Thank you very much, Dr. Stark,” He doesn’t sound very thankful, “Now, I will start the inquiry.” She’s so excited, “You are quoted as stating that….demigods receded from society due to religious persecution.” No question so no response. Why do people do this? If there’s no question how should she know what she’s supposed to answer? “Can you confirm this, Dr. Stark?”

He just said that she was quoted as saying it…whatever, “Yes.” There’s a pause….not much to elaborate on there.

“For what reason did this cessation continue into modern times?” Ummm….

In the country that has yet to finish sorting out it’s issues with melanin concentrations, immigrant cultures, other monotheistic religions, and the LBGTQ+ community…., “There were concerns over causing a public panic, a change in the status quo, and of course worries over potential...dystopian restrictions being placed on our persons.” Let’s be real. This country still has problems with eugenics.

There are multiple reasons for Cas to have been concerned about coming forward, cryptic warnings from the gods aside.

“Why now?” Is this dude going to make her repeat the answers that they’ve been giving out since May? Senator Stern is a weirdo. Unless he’s trying to catch her in a lie which isn’t going to happen….is she being paranoid? Does this man just not like her family? Is he after the demigods? Or does he genuinely believe he’s doing this in the service of the American people?

Still, some clarification would be nice, “Sir?”

“Why did the demigods choose that moment?” She actually looks around the rooms because Cas isn’t sure if this is a trick question or not.

Sure enough, no one else looks confused so she must have understood him right, “The city was about to be attacked by an extraordinary threat, senator. We weren’t going to sit back and watch.”

“About to be attacked? So the demigods became involved before the fighting began.” Everyone is already aware of this….

Her brain says ‘ummm….yeah?’ with Kill Bill sirens blaring but her voice says, “That is correct.” 

“Are you suggesting that the demigods were aware of the potential for an attack before it happened?” Oh….well then.

“We were as aware of the danger as the Avengers and Shield were at the time of the incident.” More verbiage than Mr. Becker would probably want but Cas doesn’t want to be misconstrued.

“And why didn’t you contact law enforcement regarding the impending attack?” Cas is screaming in her head right now. This man is trying to paint them as either autocratic, incompetent, irresponsible, or some mixture of all three. Of course, no one can tell from the way she takes a sip of the water in front of her.

She takes her time because she’s neither harried nor threatened, “Given the limited amount of time we had from when we confirmed that New York was targeted to when the attack occurred there wasn’t enough time to go through proper channels.” Which is true. The demigods had to use the destruction of public property to get people out of danger….which is an odd thought.

“That was confirmed in the aftermath, Dr. Stark, but as events were unfolding you could not have known that,” True, where is this going? “Why didn’t you contact any actual authorities?”

Does he want her to say that she wanted all of the glory or something to that effect?

Right, well then, “At the time I would’ve been calling….the police? I’m not certain who you would’ve wanted me to reach out to.” This opening portion of the conversation is not going in the direction that she thought it would be. Gods, Mr. Becker said that this whole thing could take around three hours….Since she’s aiming for integrity and honesty she can’t walk out like her father did in 2010.

This is going to be miserable.

“Or military authority. Your family history affords you plenty of contacts.” That’s a low blow. This guy’s kind of mean.

But honestly, she’s confused. There’s no way that would have worked, “And I was supposed to tell them that an alien army was about to attack New York City from Stark Tower with no verification or actual authority to back my own voice. Assuming they actually believed me they would’ve had to mobilize and attempt to cordon off the region around Stark Tower.” Why do that when she already had a number of demigods in the city? 

“Are you suggesting that the demigods were better able to handle this attack than the systems we have in place?” It’s possible but they’ll never know now. It’s not like Cas is going to call the Chitauri back so that they can 1 v 1 the US military. The demigods didn’t even do that. The military, FDNY, NYPD, and the Avengers all participated in the events.

“No,” Is this guy up for re-election this year? Not that Cas is registered to vote in Pennsylvania, “I’m stating that I was unwilling to risk lives by expecting what - before the events in May - would have been an unreasonable response.” Sure, she could have lied or just said there was a threat but then the wrong types of teams may have been deployed and the servicemen and women would have been blindsided by aliens.

That would’ve been worse.

If anyone was going to call in the military immediately then it should have been Shield, however, the helicarrier systems were down. 

The demigods and the Avengers were able to work together fairly well during an end of the world emergency….Fury may have had the right idea about ‘battles we never could’ but she’s not pro overreliance on one source of protection. That’s why she’s got Team Science.

Senator Stern just stares her down before shuffling some papers, “Let's move on….”

The rest of the world can be spared from the misery that Cas is subjected to with exactly one ten minute break in the middle of it. So rather than go through this entire process let’s enjoy some of the thoughts that flitted through Cassandra Stark’s mind during this inquiry.

This man has very droopy eyelids.

Is there actually anything written on those papers he keeps moving? Or is it just for aesthetics? 

Does he think she’s stupid?

There probably isn’t a good reason why the government wants the exact address for Camp Half-Blood. Not that she’s permitted to supply it. That place belongs to the gods. They can ask Olympus directly if they want to go so bad.

Cas has explained immortal energy constructs to multiple credible news sources at this point. She shouldn’t have to do it again but it looks like she’s going to anyway.

This man understands the concept of a prayer, right?

If Cas could have one wish right now it would be for a tuna fish sandwich from her favorite deli. Or maybe she should wish for a good resolution to these proceedings….she’s hungry.

Someone is messaging her on her phone and she’s tempted to pull it out and look but that would be counterproductive to the maturity she’s attempting to project.

Are people actually watching this? Because Cas is so bored that she could nap.

Better teachers? No such thing exists. She and the others have Chiron to oversee their progress….he doesn’t know who Chiron is….so he hasn’t really been paying attention to everything released by the demigods and Stark Industries since the battle.

A child psychologist ‘expert’ witness? Really? Demigods are frequently misdiagnosed with all manner of mental disorders and learning disorders and medicated unnecessarily when really their temperaments and abilities are ill suited to a standard classroom environment. There are ways to help kids without telling them something is wrong with them and shoving pills down their throats. They should consider adjusting themselves to the kids instead of encouraging rank and file conformity.

There’s also the problem that the monsters look in schools for kids that match the profiles of demigods. Short sighted idiots.

Could she free climb the Capitol Building? Probably….definitely. But is it worth the trouble she’d get in for doing it? Depends on who she asks.

Three godsdamned hours….the New Rome Senate was less frustrating than this.

If she has to subtly correct this man regarding the Romans then….nothing. She can do nothing but continue to be patient.

Everything Chiron ever taught her about diplomacy and patience has led to this but gods is this frustrating.

And finally, there’s the light at the end of the tunnel, sweet sweet freedom.

The very first thing that Cas says after they escape and the door to the car door closes is, “I need a cheeseburger.” Maybe a whole cow. She’s laughed at and she doesn’t exactly know why nor does she care. They can laugh all they want as long as they feed her.

According to her dear family and Mr. Becker she did very well avoiding the pitfalls that Senator Stern was laying in front of her. Cas doesn’t know about that because she doesn’t know what the purpose of this was….what does the federal government want? Other than answers, obviously. New York and California have been quiet as far as state governments go. 

Is she being paranoid?

Whatever. This is over with and she can move on to other parts of her life that do not involve politicians for a little while.

~~~

It is a gorgeous day.

The end of August is a wonderful time in New York City. For one the weather is nice and sunny while sitting pretty at 79 Fahrenheit (For those not stuck in a weird ass temp system it’s about 26 Celsius). Like she said, it’s gorgeous. The end of the summer has arrived and the camp awarded beads to the demigods who survived another year. They’re Arc Reactor blue with an image of Stark Tower and Cas had been incredibly honored to be offered one despite not really living at Camp Half-Blood anymore.

Her father and Pepper have gone back to California with Happy and some of their staff (entourage) while Rhodey was in fact called back to base. He has a terrorist to flush out but Cas is on call to service the armor due to a very nice and flexible contract Pepper worked out. Cas may be a demigod but she’s still the second best in the business (the best is her father but he’s significantly more expensive than she is).

So yes, it’s a gorgeous day but she also has no people around right now because all of her demigods have classes. Time differences mean meetings for Cas are typically later in the day so she’s just….out enjoying the weather. Odd for her but the Tower is really quiet right now and people in Lamark High-Rise keep giving her looks.

It was actually pretty peaceful on her little bench with her fancy Cafe Mocha from an artisan coffee shop off 1st Avenue. Or it was then two people walked into her line of sight.

“Dr. Stark,” Cas pretends to ignore Director Fury in favor of Tumblr. It’s a dark and wild fandom place especially after she made the mistake of looking up herself on it….gods…, “If we might have a word.”

“The word is petrichor, Mr. Pirate,” She says before sighing and looking up at Fury and his companion, “Hi Steve, did he rope you into this so that I’d actually have a conversation with him?” She’s a bit surprised to see Steve with Fury to be perfectly honest. He didn’t seem very happy with the way Shield did things on the helicarrier.

Steve nods at her, “Cassandra,” Then he gestures at the bench she’s occupying, “Would you mind if we sit?” It’s so tempting to be difficult just because she can be.

But she nods back, “Have a seat, my dudes,” Then she puts her phone away to give them her mostly undivided attention. Her mind is still whirring because Helen tweaked her simulacrum for the tissue binding sites and now they’ve moved onto application methods and intentionally triggering specific cell signaling cascades. It’s fascinating stuff honestly, “What can I do for you on this August day?”

They must make an odd grouping on a park bench with an eye patch man in the middle of them. He’s not wearing the trench coat and Cas doesn’t know how she feels about it. It’s actually a little weird, “You have been very busy, Dr. Stark.”

That she has, “Well, you know what they say about idle hands.”

It’s crazy that Fury can give people looks that say ‘are you bullshitting me right now?’ with so little visible effort, “I didn’t think you believed in the devil.”

“I don’t,” She states placidly, “But that’s because I don’t think it’s wise to ascribe all of the evil in the world to one abstract being.” There’s plenty of evil to go around but they should move past this topic, “So Stevie, whatcha doing with Shield? I figured that the army would take you back.”

He leans forward with a conflicted expression, “I thought about it but I decided that I could do more good overall with Shield instead.” Okay....well, if that’s his problem then he should join the Peace Corps or something, “Nico didn’t tell you?”

Huh? Right, they all think she’s got like an iron grip on the demigods. That’s literally impossible, “Nico’s not much for sharing with anyone,” Other than Will because those two are really good together, “And even if he was, your stuff is your stuff.” Not that Cas would ask, she doesn’t feel more than moderate curiosity towards Steve’s future plans. She wishes him all the best but she doesn’t know that guy(despite what people are suggesting from the videos of them slaying Chitauri together...ew).

“As touching as that is,” Cas sighs when Fury leads with that, “We have a more important matter to discuss,” She’s all ears, “I have guys saying that the demigods believe there’s a follow up attack on the way but all of that stopped a few days after New York.” That did happen. Rather than respond, Cas looks around and tries to spot all of the Shield agents that have to be forming a perimeter right now. It’s good practice. “Why?” Oh good, he asked a question.

“How many people did you bring? Because I count twelve,” She squints down the walkway, “Unless that guy at the hotdog stand is just a weirdo, in which case, one of us has a stalker.” Cas is done defending herself before inquiries. There’s no way that Fury hasn’t figured out why Cas called her people back from spreading the word and she doesn’t feel like getting into this.

“Dr. Stark, if there is another attack coming then I need to know about it,” See, Cas could understand that but the WSC is still a problem in her eyes. How do they derive their authority? Who are they representing? How did those individuals obtain their seats?

“If there is,” This belongs in some cloak and dagger movie because Cas is literally side-eying Fury right now, “What would the World Security Council and Shield do about it?” She doesn’t trust either of those groups.

“Prepare, Cassandra,” Steve says and Cas is beginning to worry that he drank the Kool-Aid, “Shield brought the Avengers together to protect the world.” Scratch that, guzzled the Kool-Aid.

“Last I checked,” She turns and makes sure to maintain full eye contact with Fury this time, “The Avengers were called in as a response team for an unprecedented threat. A ground team so to speak but Shield’s long term prep work left much to be desired.” So many things were wrong with that.

Cas is forced to concede to Fury’s ability to get his point across. The man has presence, not like her father, but still, “Phase II is being decommissioned,” It never should’ve made it to the assembly line, “And the Index is up for review. It will likely be scrapped or heavily altered. When the time comes we’ll need a consultation on how to proceed more humanely.” Awwwww….Fury brought her a peace offering. He should have led with that. A quick look at Steve shows him nodding along. Fine, he might still be naive about the 21st century but he’s not a complete idiot.

“Can’t say that I have any evidence of such a thing,” So she won’t lie. Cas doesn’t trust Shield or Fury’s questionable methods to get the job done. It’s possible that she’s being petty but she won’t forgive Shield for willingly sitting back while her father suffered when he could have solved the problem with Howard Stark’s research immediately, “That was all speculation based on battlefield analysis.” Sadly, Shield came to the conclusion that the video with a message from Howard to his son belonged in a storage facility instead of with his son, Cas’s father. Now they can’t be friends. 

Since the world isn’t currently under attack from space aliens there is no reason for Cas to table her feelings for the ‘greater good.’ Not when the WSC has their finger on the trigger of WMDs. She has plenty of people working on this already including Iron Man so she doesn’t need or want the people who looked at the shiny power cube and thought ‘let’s make a bomb.’ “If that were the case, why invest in Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig?”

Ha...ha, ha, ha, “I promised Thor that I would look out for her. The easiest way to do that is to have her work for Stark Industries and it seemed a shame to split her from Dr. Selvig,” Should she be nice? Nah, “You know, after Shield let him get abducted by aliens.”

“Were we supposed to see that one coming?” Ever the sceptic….

“Of course not, Mr. Pirate,” Her returning grin is all teeth, “But you should have let him know that his Tesseract research would be used to make weapons.” Cas is happy to pass along the news that Phase II has been decommissioned though. 

Steve attempts to mediate and she feels a little bad for the guy even if she doesn’t understand what they were planning to accomplish here, “Cassandra, after all of our differences were set aside we were all able to work together to save the world,” After the demigods did the heavy lifting and her father, “We can do that again.”

“You are absolutely right, Cap,” Cas leans back on the bench and crosses her legs serenely, “In an emergency I would table all of my moral debates with Shield protocols in favor of our beautiful blue marble but that’s not what this is,” Fury seems to have grasped what she saying, finally. Cas doesn’t like Shield. Cas doesn’t trust Shield. However, if there’s another attack then she’ll play nice with the other kids. Afterall, “Hey Fury, you should know your Index got eleven of my guys. I’d be impressed if I didn’t have to help explain to their siblings what happened to them.” That’s a bit of a fib. She is in no way impressed. In fact, Cas is very angry, furious even, if the pun is excusable.

Fury for his part has realized that she’s given as much as she’s willing to, “My condolences,” She nods in response, “I hope that in the event of conflicts with enemies of a more mystical origin we can count on your assistance.” Well, if Pepper was here right now she’d be staring Cas down to keep her from agreeing to something like this Carte Blanche.

“I’m not heartless, Pirate man,” So she’ll leave it wide open for interpretation on both sides, “If there’s a problem then there will be people who step up.” She has no plans to limit herself to the role of assisting though. At this point, she’s an old pro at saving the world without unnecessarily powerful weaponry.

“Thank you for your time, Dr. Stark,” Yeah sure, whatever. At least he approached her in public instead of breaking into her home like what he did to her father. Although, he probably couldn’t get anyone inside of her building , “You should know that our intel suggests that Congress has no intention of pursuing restrictions against demigods.” Oh...well that’s good news. She could use some more of that.

“Thanks director. You too, Steve.” Cas has manners.

  
  


~~~

So fallout: Broad Strokes.

People know about the demigods.

Most Americans like the demigods. The international community needs another minute to think about it.

Stark Industries went public in filing to get the rights of demigods formally recognized since they are genetically indistinguishable from humans. (There’s been minimal resistance but they fall in the same category as anti-vaxers.)

The demigods were publicly thanked for their efforts and (in New York but California is sure to follow) welcomed to the state openly….they were already here but cool. Thanks. Moving on.

There was another Mandarin attack publicized with the ‘promise’ of more on the horizon.

Zoning for the three new Stark Towers was finalized and construction has started (Atlanta, Houston, and Detroit) while the LA building is also revamped. Pretty much Stark Industries is experiencing some exponential growth right now and Cas is just going along with it.

As long as she gets to science with Helen and occasionally Bruce (he’s a bit of an odd duck but he’s welcome around the other odd ducks) Cas is content. 

Jane, Dr. Selvig, and Darcy went up to Boston for the first time on the tail end of the summer and then decided to head to Europe. Apparently, Dr. Selvig is onto something and she doesn’t know exactly what it is. Cas isn’t going to look over their shoulder and watch every little development they poke at. That would be ridiculous but from the updates Darcy’s been sending her it involves space bending which she’s all for studying from a scientific standpoint. Annabeth promised to check in on them if they needed it so no one is worried. Why is Annabeth allowed to travel internationally? Because no one is going to tell her no.

Now, September was a weird time for Cas.

Evidently superheroes are the cool thing for the fall of 2012 school year so there’s little Captain America backpacks and Iron Man t-shirts as well as all other manner of Avengers gear on the little kiddies bouncing off to school. Fine. She’ll accept that. There’s also pegasus themed things and some generally hellenistic vibes from some articles of clothing that are considered in season….weird.

The kids can do whatever they want as long as the adults don’t try to bring back chitons or anything to that effect.

Time showed it’s possible that Rhodey was right in how to help her father because when Cas crosses the continent for whatever reason of the week he always has time for her. So maybe while her father is...coping? Recovering? While her father is doing whichever one of those is more accurate he can only handle her in smaller doses.

That’s fine. It’s not like she’s alone or she needs to constantly be in his space. She’s glad to see him doing well and getting away from New York appears to have helped.

So the world settles into yet another new normal for Cas and she thinks that she can handle this right now. She has plans to fly out to Malibu for Christmas because she and her father have fans that need to see their third Christmas tree(She found some Grumpy Cat ornaments that have made the cut for this year).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The situation with the Congolese military that the Russos conveniently forgot about during Civil War is from the Iron Man tie in comics that were canon....until the Russos.
> 
> IF SECRETARY ROSS CAME IN AND TRIED TO BOSS THE AVENGERS AROUND TONY LITERALLY COULD HAVE DROPPED THAT INFORMATION AND RUINED THAT MAN'S WHOLE CAREER!!!
> 
> And then Civil War never would have happened.
> 
> But that's none of my business.


	16. Everybody Has Their Own Wormhole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it to IM3!!!!
> 
> Like WHAT!!!!!
> 
> I love this movie. I know a lot of people don't but I do love it. This movie was the first time where I remember seeing the hero negatively impacted mentally by being the hero. Sure the heroes in movies get beat up and shot but Tony got crippling anxiety and nightmares that directly impacted his ability to function.
> 
> He felt isolated and powerless but he overcame it. AGAIN!!! Like in the other two movies, being Iron Man turns into an act of defiance against the powers that are looking to defeat him. 
> 
> I just love Iron Man, okay?

_ “Some people call me a terrorist. I consider myself a teacher. America, ready for another lesson?”  _ Gods….these are people. Those are people in the background of the video all angry and shooting,  _ “In 1864, in Sand Creek, Colorado, the US military waited until the friendly Cheyenne Braves had all gone hunting. Waited to attack and slaughter the families left behind and claim their land.” _ That’s not entirely true. He’s twisting the narrative as only these types of cowards will. Colonel Chivington wasn’t under orders. He called on volunteers to massacre the innocent Native Americans who had been invited to that land by the Colorado Governor. Chivington was reprimanded and left the military in disgrace. It’s not as much as he should have been punished but this wasn’t the actions of the US military. Just one monster with followers.

Like this Mandarin,  _ “Thirty nine hours ago the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait was attacked. I... I-I did that.” _ It’s sick,  _ “A quaint military church filled with wives and children, of course. The soldiers were out on maneuvers. The braves were away.”  _ It’s….Cas isn’t ignorant of people targeting the innocent. Every monster that targets a demigod because they’re a demigod is targeting an innocent….but these are people. And to target a place of worship….disturbing, _ “President Ellis, you continue to resist my attempts to educate you, sir.”  _ The shots of oil drills and the burning effigy of the President suggest eco terrorist but the use of historical events to justify his actions says something else entirely.  _ “And now you’ve missed me again.”  _ There’s also a taunting confidence in the way he talks,  _ “You know who I am. You don’t know where I am. And you’ll never see me coming.” _

Cas sat back and watched as the new station scrambled to come to terms with being hijacked like that. The previous ‘incident’ Cas asked Jarvis to trace the signal just so that she could send something to Rhodey but it was being bounced around so many locations that nothing useful came up. Nothing that she saw anyway, Cas sent it to Rhodey regardless even though it didn’t help.

It made both of them, Cas and Jarvis, uncomfortable that someone could do that. The Mandarin’s got a lot of big tech behind him and a powerful benefactor if he’s capable of hiding from them. That assessment did help Rhodey so she did in fact contribute. Then he told her to stop because Cas has been helping enough by looking after War Machine.

Whatever. He’s her uncle. She’ll help as much as he lets her.

This incident though. The Mandarin did it on November 29, on the anniversary of the massacre, like some sort of tribute to the Cheyenne. That someone can murder innocent people and call it justice is probably one of the more horrifying things that Cas has ever learned.

That was almost a month ago and they still haven’t found the guy. There’s been three confirmed bombings and while the first one was delayed, they all have these lecture style videos to go along with them. He interrupted news broadcasts the second time. It’s like he’s gaining more resources as he goes...more supporters and followers? There’s plenty of people who hate the United States so it probably isn’t that hard.

She’s trying not to think too much about it even if it’s horrible to turn a blind eye. Well, she isn’t technically because she’s helping Rhodey (even if that stupid ass paint job the Air Force got approval to outsource for was hilarious. He could only stand there as Cas doubled over and laughed at him…. _ Iron Patriot? _ ). 

So since Cas isn’t working on anything for Stark Industries at the moment (Helen is in South Korea through the New Year.) she’s in the Tower workshop. She’s headed to Malibu in a couple of days to spend the holidays with her family which is….really nice. It’s something that she’s been looking forward to because she hasn’t seen her father in person since Thanksgiving….he didn’t want to do anything for his birthday.

Which is fine. She wasn’t going to force him to. It’s just she’s really only gotten to celebrate one of those with her father but she sent him a gift instead. The gift was probably dumb because he didn’t say much but Cas has so many freaking pictures in the Nike Cabin. After Kronos, Cas sort of got most of Silena’s things because Drew Tanaka was going to throw it all out. In it were CDs that Cas had burned for her over the years before MP3s were a thing but so were the doubles for a lot of photos from disposable cameras.

Silena thought that because their lives were so fleeting it was important to record as many moments as possible. Cas wonders how she would feel about Twitter and Instagram. She’d probably be all over it. She really was the kindest of them all.

Anyway, Cas had all of these photos so she decided to finally give her father some context for her life and gave them all to him along with annotations(...it was a suggestion on Pinterest but it had good reviews….). It’s not like there’s things to get a person like her father.

He said thank you so she thinks that she did good but that was all he really said about it.

These are the sort of thoughts that Cas is trying to distract herself from with The Beastie Boys while taking apart her bike. She still runs great but there’s no reason that Cas can’t give her a tune up. It’s not working all that well and at first she’s grateful for the distraction Jarvis offers when he says,  _ “Colonel Rhodes is on the line for you, Miss.” _

She waves to mute the music, “You can put him through. Thanks, J.”

_ “Hey Eisenhower,”  _ He’s the only one who calls her that but other than her father, and very rarely Happy, no one else calls her ‘kid’ and no one with than her old man calls her ‘kiddo.’ It works for them.

“‘Sup, Iron Patriot,” She cannot suppress the grin as she says that.

Rhodey’s sigh is a palpable thing,  _ “I just got this from your father,”  _ Oh? She wonders what he said,  _ “You already know it-” _

“Tested well with focus groups, yeah, yeah, I heard it before,” Cas is still grinning. Maybe a call from her Rhodey is what she needed to get out of her funk, “You do realize it sounds like they're turning you into Mecha-Captain America,” Poor Steve, he’s been replaced with a newer and more explosive model. That’s a guy that surprised her. Nico gave him some pointers on where to start on catching up as far as the important major changes were concerned but for a guy who was painted as a team player with the Howlies he’s decided to go lone wolf. 

He also decided to stay with Shield instead of rejoin the US armed forces who would have welcomed him back with open arms. Surprising since he had problems with the way they do things too...maybe he did it out of gratitude to the people who found and revived him?

_ “Yeah, yeah,”  _ It’s so easy to tell that Rhodey isn’t actually annoyed,  _ “That’s Mecha-Colonel to you,” _ And then the mood flips,  _ “Listen Cassie, I just had lunch with your dad and there was….he had a little moment. I’ve seen it before and usually I’d recommend the pilot submit themselves for evaluation.” _ But it’s her father and he’d never go see a doctor,  _ “He flew off in the suit before I could get any answers from him.” _

She sighs, “Ummm….” Cas has Jarvis pull up the most recent vitals from the suit. He’d never spy on her father for her or vice versa but the data is produced without any delays and that more than anything concerns her. If her father forgot to secure this from her then he’s off his game. It takes a lot to throw her father off of his game. Jarvis’s diagnosis pops up right there in clear holographic letters, ‘Anxiety Attack.’ Fuck, “He’s not really getting better, is he?”

_ “I’m not going to lie to you, Cassandra,”  _ That’s comforting,  _ “He clearly isn’t sleeping enough and he’s working himself into the ground. Other people are starting to notice,”  _ Shit,  _ “It’s nothing like two years ago when the Pentagon and everyone else wanted to take his suits but the sentiments are there.” _

Cas doesn’t want to shoot the messenger but she nearly snarls in response, “He nearly died for them! They should be thankful, not circling like Jaws.”

It’s probably a good thing that Rhodey is so used to Cas now,  _ “They are. Which is why no one has been commenting on his decreased face time with the media.” _

Whatever, she leans back and looks up at the vaulted ceiling like the answers to all of her problems are written across its smooth surface. They’re not, “I’m assuming that you haven’t called just to give me an update on dad.”

_ “No,” _ There’s a pause and Cas can feel him thinking,  _ “A few months ago you said something along the lines of ‘talking to other people helps.’” _

He can’t see her but if he could Rhodey would not need Cas to speak to know what she’s thinking, “Generally speaking, discussing problems with others is a good way to solve them.” She’s thinking ‘let's avoid this emotional landmine for the good of the masses.’

_ “No, no, not like that,”  _ Huh?  _ “You know Tony so you wouldn’t use thoughts like ‘generally speaking’ when trying to help him.” _ No one should ever forget that Rhodey is also MIT and brilliant. There’s a reason why he was able to actually befriend her father,  _ “That was from a place of personal experience.” _

It’s scary, really, how good of a read Rhodey has on her. Cas hasn’t been able to figure out if he’s just that good with people or if her nature makes her enough like her father that he can get by. Sort of like languages. Cas knows someone in R&D who speaks Polish but they can understand Russian(Cas cannot make heads or tails of those languages.).

“Yeah, I talk to Chiron,” She says immediately because everybody knows that and details are not something she wants to stray too close to.

_ “Look,”  _ Rhodey sighs again and Cas feels really bad about going on the defensive but she still doesn’t want to talk about the gigantomachy,  _ “Yes or no,” _ Neither, she chooses neither,  _ “Do you have your own wormhole?” _

It’s an interesting turn of phrase and it’s so tempting to lie but, “Yes,” it’s Rhodey.

There’s some cursing but then all he says to her is, _ “Alright, when?”  _ Weird that he would assume she hasn’t mentioned it yet.

“How do you know I haven’t already told you about it?” She’s curious even as she wants to delay this.

_ “Because sometimes you're too much like your dad for your own good. Now, answer the question.” _

Dammit. She fiddles with a bolt while she tries to decide what to do but in the end accepts the inevitable, “About three months before I met dad,” Actually…, “It probably contributed to a lot of my early...quirks. I’m a lot nicer to my Circadian rhythm now.” And furniture. 

_ “Jesus, Cassie.” _

“Leave Jesus out of this,” Honestly, “He was a cool dude.” Truthfully, he was a proponent for civil justice and an all around awesome person. She’s particularly fond of the story where he chased the merchants out of the Temple with a whip for their corrupt business practices. It’s a beautiful image.

_ “That’s not-I’m not even going to ask what happened.” _

“Good, because I wasn’t going to tell you.”

_ “But you should call your dad.” _

What?

That doesn’t make any sense at all.

“I fail to see the correlation here,” That and she really doesn’t think it would help anyone if she digs that stuff up, “Weren’t you the one who said he thought it was weird that I was handling things so well? Telling him would make him upset again.”

_ “Okay, Tony was never upset about your response to New York,”  _ She begs to differ,  _ “It’s two different events that you obviously feel are similar,” _ There’s a lot of unfortunate parallels that can be drawn between their separate lives,  _ “But Cassie, one person’s response to a traumatic event does not override or undermine someone else's. Your father is at his worst when he’s isolated,” _ So is she….sigh,  _ “Call him. Knowing that he’s not on his own with this is going to go a long way.” _

It feels like this is going to blow up in a big way….in her face most likely, “Why couldn’t you have asked me for help finding the Mandarin?” That’s a far easier to process issue.

_ “It’s not superhero business,”  _ She’s heard this line before,  _ “It’s America business. The Pentagon is scrambling to look strong right now.”  _ Yeah, she’s already been on the receiving end of that but it turned out okay (?) or at least nothing negative has come from it yet. She’s optimistic there.

“I also feel like I’m not supposed to be my father’s emotional support,” She thinks she heard something somewhere about how the parent isn’t supposed to rely on the child as a primary pillar of strength.

_ “These aren’t normal circumstances and you’re not hosting couch sessions,”  _ That’s true. Cas isn’t about to go full Chiron. Cas could never go full Chiron,  _ “Just make sure he knows that you’re there.” _ Such wisdom….gods….Cas could've sworn she was already doing that but Rhodey probably means that she needs to be more overt about it.

Fine, “Alright,” However, “If he gets mad or I get nightmares expect many ranty phone calls from me.”

_ “I look forward to it,” _ He hangs up after that….

Malaka.

She sits in silence for maybe five minutes before deciding to consult with the only person who may have a better grasp of the situation, “Well, Jarvis? Do you think an empathetic intervention will help the old man?”

There’s a silence where Jarvis is processing her question. He might be running a statistical analysis but the precedents for Cas and her father’s exact situation are rather lacking,  _ “I am unaware of your relevant memory and cannot say for certain if sharing it would help,” _ Yay,  _ “However, your honesty about your identity two years ago resulted in Mr. Stark choosing to fight for his life,”  _ Sort of true, there were other factors at work there,  _ “I should also point out that after being awake for more that seventy two hours, Mr. Stark decided to give himself subdermal micro-repeater implants.” _

Cas initially thought it would take a minimum of forty nine micro-repeaters to be able to clearly communicate with the suit. What? Gods….how are they considered grown ups? That’s-ugh, “That was a low blow, J. Now I have to check on him. Pull up the specs.” The details of the Mark XLII: Autonomous Prehensile Propulsion Suit prototype spring up in front of her like Jarvis has been waiting to throw these in her face. If Cas wasn’t so concerned she would be drooling over the masterful engineering that went into it. The use of silicone and ceramic on the attachment regions means that the pieces can grip and slot over the pilot’s body independently from each other. Each piece can be used independently or in conjunction with the other.

The micro-repeaters her father developed are a bit more fancy than her initial designs….they talk to his nervous system. By the gods, that is so amazing. That’s not even the best part! He developed augmented reality remote control.

That has so many freaking applications! Construction workers or anyone working in a hazardous environment could operate a crane or something with that. That’s just a basic means of using it. With how precise this is a doctor could perform surgery without ever being in the OR which could minimize risk of infection or allow senior doctors to operate when their bodies can’t keep up with their mind. Wait! Even better. Bodies can’t keep up? This could help neurodegenerative disorders….or even….REAL PROSTHETIC LIMBS.

Okay, her brain is going everywhere but where it’s supposed to be. She can come back around to this much later.

Because she will.

Right now she has other priorities, “Is he in the workshop?” Stupid question, where else would her father be?

_ “Yes Miss, shall I call him?” _ Hmmm…. Cas looks around her workspace and down at herself, “Nah, do a full drop in. I want to see him.” She’s presentable enough(if a bit grease stained) and he needs to see her too for something like this.

_ “Kid,” _ A helpful little display pops up to the right of where she’s working giving her a visual of her father,  _ “Need something?”  _

She wants to answer the question but she’s distracted by what’s behind him, “Is that my punching bag? Why’s it down there?” Cas doesn’t think she left it at his house….And he’s brought the wooden dummy down there from the gym. Strange. Is he living down there?

_ “I needed it,” _ Fair enough,  _ “What do you want?”  _ Cas takes a small moment to internally curse Rhodey for putting her in this position but then she immediately takes it back because he was telling her the truth. Her father’s lost weight since she last saw him. He’s not gaunt but he's definitely on the leaner side.

Dammit.

She would like to say that she has some elaborate word play to turn the conversation in her favor but Cas has never been able to do that with her father. It’s literally never worked. So rather than ease the conversation along in the ‘correct’ direction Cas says, “Rhodey tattled on you.” Because it throws him under the bus and explains to her father exactly what is about to happen.

Rhodey means well but she is not taking the heat for this.

There’s a drop in the metaphorical temperature when he father finally looks up from what he’s doing and into the camera of whichever device she’s viewing him from. Yeah, he looks exhausted,  _ “Tattled about what?” _   
Uhhh...nope, “Don’t do that.”

_ “Do what? I’m fine,” _ Which is the same as passable and okay. Nowhere near well, good, or even great,  _ “There’s nothing for you to-” _

“Before, he told me to give you space,” She cuts him off before he can get going. Otherwise they’ll end up going back and forth for a while and that’s a waste of time, “That all I had to do was make sure that you knew I was available. Because I am, you know that right?” It’s important for some reason that her father confirms that. She needs to know that he knows she won’t ditch him because he’s having trouble. 

He sighs and she feels like shit for making him do it,  _ “Yes Cassie, I know that but I’m fine. You’ll be here in what? Two days? We’ll do a tree, Christmas, and everything’s great.” _

It would be so easy to agree right now. She could drop the topic like this and no painful memories will need to be addressed. Her father wouldn’t lie to her so if he says he’s fine he means it….or he believes it but is wrong….or he’s lying to himself first so it doesn’t count. Sadly, she can’t back out because she told Rhodey that she’d do it, “I promise I’m not going to try and make you talk about anything but Rhodey thought….he said that if I tell you about….if I tell you what happened in Rome…” Cas talks to gods, she sat in front of a Senate committee, and she’s bullshit her way around monsters. Yet it is trying to broach uncomfortable topics around her father that makes her ramble and restart like an idiot.

Embarrassing.

“Anyway, you don’t have to listen,” Cas has given up trying to look her father in the eye at this point. Her bike is far more interesting for her to look at, “Rhodey said something about relating. It was all kinds of hugginess so I’ll understand if you don’t-”

_ “Okay,” _ It’s forced nonchalance. She doesn’t even know why he tried,  _ “Been wondering about that one for a while.” _ Yeah, Cas hasn’t been subtle about her aversion to the place. Nothing good ever happened to her in that city.

“Cool,” She takes a drink from her Star Wars water bottle to buy herself a second to think, “You know how we have the Athena Parthenos on Half-Blood Hill.” Her father gives a noncommittal noise but she knows he’s paying attention. This is pretty typical for if they’re talking, “It’s actually a recent addition. The Romans stole it centuries ago and it enraged Athena. She can’t stand Romans even now,” She never got past her demotion from war goddess, “Once a generation, Athena would charge the best and brightest of her children to go looking for it. They never succeeded.”

_ “Annabeth?”  _ No hesitation.

She huffs out a quiet laugh, “Who else? Star-Girl’s the best. The exact reason we-the group from the press conference- were in Italy isn’t relevant exactly and neither is the rest of the day,” Angry water spirits tried to kill them but had a change of heart. Nico was in a jar. Otis and Ephialtes were defeated with ‘help’ from Bacchus, “What is relevant is that Annabeth was forced to go off on her own to find the Parthenos.”

_ “Haven’t you said that splitting up is for Scooby Doo?” _

“Yeah,” Life’s funny that way, “But we don’t always get a choice. After a run in with Bacchus, because Rome, he told us that we had very little chance to save her but gave us her location anyway,” And Nico dropped the ‘doors must be closed from both sides’ plot twist. Rather than explain the Argo II, “We ended up going through the roof of this building….rather explosively. Leo and I were directly involved in that. But we found her,” She shudders at the memory. It’s…., “I didn’t know what it was at first but there was something wrong with that room other than the spider webs, not that we cared. The room could have been on fire for all the Percy and I noticed after we spotted Annabeth.” She realizes that she’s leaving out details but they don’t matter.

“See while I was with those other demigods, my sister had been crawling through the bowels of Rome alone and had broken her leg,” Cas shakes her head at the memory. Even from across the country she can feel her father’s eyes on the side of her face, “Alone in the dark, with a broken leg, Annabeth Chase defeated Arachne. That’s - I don’t know how to explain how big of a deal that is - but it’s crazy. We found her on the ground feverish from Ambrosia with her leg splinted using some rotted wood, tape, and bubble wrap.” If anyone thinks that Cas is tough then they need to take it back in favor of Annabeth.

She has a captive audience though, “Annabeth was too injured to move but she found the Parthenos. Turns out that Arachne had been using it to lure her meals into her webs...which were all over the room and Annabeth. That wasn’t the only thing wrong with it though. When we...blasted our way in through a parking garage we dropped a Renault on Arachne and she fell through the floor into….well I didn’t believe it at first but Annabeth said it was a straight shot to Tartarus.” Her father sucks a sharp breath. She did tell him that there are places even the gods won’t go.

“We were so stupid. That day had been exhausting and we thought the fighting was over so we didn’t hurry. We needed to get the Statue out first and then we could figure out what to do with it. Honestly, I didn’t even care. I was on one side of Annabeth and Percy was on the other,” He’d said ‘It’s okay. We’re together’ to Annabeth and Cas was so sure they would all be just fine. Stupid, “We thought the place was secured but Hazel noticed the danger before I did and just a heart beat too late too. One of the webs snagged on Annabeth started to pull her toward the edge and gods…” She tilts her head back and looks at the ceiling, “I swear I didn’t think, I just held on to her and so did Percy. We weren’t just sliding. We were being pulled in by the webs wrapped around Annabeth.” It had very nearly ripped her shoulder out of its socket when she caught the ledge and even with Percy’s help they weren’t strong enough to pull Annabeth up. “It turned into a really long fall.” It was too dark and too disorienting to keep track but if Hesiod is to be believed it takes nine days to fall into Tartarus. Then it takes another eight to find a way out in her experience.

Cas looks at her father after stopping, “Would you believe she tried to tell us to let her go?” Her smile is weak, “As if that were possible. As if it was ever up for consideration.” He understands.

_ “They couldn’t pull you up.” _ It’s not a question.

She shakes her head anyway, “We needed the statue. It was the priority and we were too far down and out of reach anyway,” Also, Nico had said someone had to close the doors on the tartarus side. It may as well have been them that went, “The whole room was starting to destabilize. There was no way for them to get to us and secure the Athena Parthenos so Percy and I made a choice. It….” Words fail her at this point. 

A call to Chiron is in her immediate future and then Rhodey because if she can’t sleep after this then neither can he, “There are places even the gods don’t go but I went and I came back. It was...is hard sometimes. Sometimes I need to sleep with the lights on but it has gotten easier.” She huffs out a laugh, “You can call it the power of friendship or some other shit but I really promise that it gets easier if you find someone to talk to.” Cas wonders if her father dealt with something like this post Afghanistan but he’s always moved like a force of nature for as long as she’s known him. It’s still difficult for Cas to accept that her father is having problems now.

They both fall into silence and her father is nice enough to give her a few minutes to get herself back together before asking,  _ “How did you get out?” _

Ha.

Ha, ha, ha. Not today, old man, “The power of friendship and a magic elevator.” Because that is not a lie. They fall into silence again and it’s weird because neither of them directly acknowledge the other. It’s sort of like they’re pretending to be sharing a workspace and she’ll take it because she’d been worried that he would hang up on her.

Then he breaks the silence again,  _ “That whole aliens thing was really a walk in the park for you, huh?” _

There’s a correct answer to this question but Cas doesn’t really know what it is. Fuck it, “Maybe….but space wouldn’t be.” She wants to go because it sounds really cool but the circumstances that her father went through….piggy backing a nuke on a ‘one way’ trip? That’s not something Cas thinks she would just walk off.

She should never have assumed that her father would….but he’s Iron Man. Indomitable and entirely self-made. So Cas has a blindspot where her father is concerned….it’s why she has other rational people in her life.

There’s more silence from her father then,  _ “What did you think of the Mark XLII?” _

Cas smiles in relief because they’ve done enough emotions for today. Her promise to Rhodey has been upheld, “I love it. Hey, the augmented reality and remote piloting, you’re not planning on keeping that in house are you?”

_ “Hmmm….I was at the moment,” _ Dammit all,  _ “Why? You want it?” _

Yes, for so many things, yes, “I think Dr. Filoni in biomedical research will straight up kiss you on the mouth if you share that one.” Cas has shifted focus from grafting tech to tissue to using tech to direct cell proliferation but that doesn’t mean everyone has.

_ “Is he the one with the Karl Marx beard?” _

“No, that’s….Dr. Webster? I think,” Not important, “Dr. Filoni has the funny hats.”

_ “In that case it’s not worth Pepper’s wrath,” _ Cas ugly snorts while laughing at that. She hears her father laughing too and it’s been a while since she heard it. This helped,  _ “On Christmas, we’ll see about alternative applications. I’ve got a whole bunch of new tech I’ve been working on.” _ Instead of sleeping but he’ll get there.

“Looking forward to it,” Cas spends a while longer poking at stuff her dad’s made during his time as a hermit. It’s good. This is good. It doesn’t feel forced.

_ “I gotta let you go, kiddo. Happy time.” _

Uh oh, “Is he still terrorizing the interns?” They’re never going to want to stay on staff if they’re afraid of the head of security, “I heard there’s been some crazy increase in complaints in the past few months.”

_ “It’s Happy on his mission to make the world not happy so….yes.” _ Then a hint of hesitation on his face before he continues,  _ “Send Chiron’s number to my device when you get a chance.” _ It takes all of Cas’s self control to not react the way she wants. Honestly, she wants to cheer because Chiron can definitely help her father out.

Instead she gives a calm, “Sure. I’ll see you soon, old man.” And then she ends the call. A check of the time reveals it’s after seven….yikes. Jarvis was kind enough to silence her alarms and notifications while she was on the phone with her father but now all of her reminders to stop and feed herself are backlogged.

She’s hungry so….time to head home and talk Chiron’s ear off provided that he isn’t busy. Cas isn’t actually going to torment Rhodey over this since she feels like the call helped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This talk felt so important to me.
> 
> It's not going to magically fix Tony's trauma but it is going to put him into a better position to handle it. 
> 
> I've set the story up so that around Cas, he feels the need to be at his best which is kind of hard when dealing with all of what's going on in his head right now. Rhodey saw that and maybe even had this talk with Tony in the background so Cas sharing isn't about fixing her father. It's about saying 'I have this scar and this scar and oh yeah, I have this one too but got easier' so that he knows that she doesn't expect him to be fine right away.
> 
> It's about empathy which should in theory allow for some of his baggage to be more manageable. Sadly, it's still there though.


	17. Long Distance Problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS!!! We hit a milestone and I thought I'd celebrate that by giving you all another chapter early (you'll still get the next one on friday). 
> 
> Child of Nike passed 4,000 hits and Cult of Alexander reached 3,000!!! What!!?!?!?!? And it's all thanks to you guys who read and bookmark and kudos my works.
> 
> I owe you all so much. You've been so kind and supportive in the comments.
> 
> <3

Cas isn’t particularly surprised when Jarvis turns on the lights in her bedroom. From the way her sheets are twisted around her ankles and her heart’s pounding, it hadn’t been a pleasant dream he woke her from even if it’s already fading from her focus. However, Jarvis only tries to wake her if they get really bad and now that she’s thinking about it, it doesn’t feel like this one was. So what gives?

“Jarvis?” A glance out the window shows it’s still dark but it’s December so that’s anything before seven.

He doesn’t disappoint,  _ “Good morning, miss. The weather in New York is-” _

She rolls over and groans into her pillow, “Cut the wake up routine, J. Why am I up before the sun?” Cas doesn’t like to be up before Apollo’s chariot passes overhead.

The TV on the wall lights up, “ _ You have a protocol in place regarding Mandarin broadcasts. I’m afraid that this one was detected only moments ago.” _ It’s not frightening but there’s something jaring about seeing that fist slam down on a...a fortune cookie? 

_ “True story about fortune cookies,”  _ It is a fortune cookie….right then. Where was this attack?  _ “They look Chinese. They sound Chinese. But they’re actually an American invention. Which is why they’re hollow, full of lies, and leave a bad taste in the mouth.” _ It’s strange. There’s so much theatricality in these broadcasts. The camera angles and the ambiance are on a professional and Hollywood level. It’s like there’s a specialist there to make the tone perfect and unsettling. As much planning seems to be going into the bombings as there is in the messages afterwards. 

_ “My disciples just destroyed another cheap American knockoff. The Chinese Theatre. Mr. President, I know this must be getting frustrating.”  _ Cas cringes when the clip of the Mandarin embracing children with his dirty hands plays. Gods, she would love to punch this man in the face,  _ “But this season of terror is drawing to a close. _ ” Is that a play on the holiday season?  _ “And don’t worry the big one is coming. Your graduation.” _ This monster just announced that he plans to assassinate the President by what? New Years? The insanity never stops.

She’s not going to sleep after that one. Now, it’s difficult to get a read on Jarvis since he doesn’t have a face or any physical mannerisms. The only way to tell what’s what with him is by what he says or rather what he doesn’t say, “Do we have any idea how many people were injured?” The Chinese Theater is….was in LA so it’s perfectly acceptable to butt in on the relief efforts. Cas is already planning on maybe flying out early to help the Maria Stark Foundation get the ball rolling. Then she hesitates because Jarvis hesitates to answer. He doesn’t need time to think or search. He’s Jarvis.

Any hold up on delivery of information is because he’s thinking about how to say it,  _ “I regret to inform you that the Chinese Theater is the last known location of Mr. Hogan.” _ What?

No...that’s not….that is not okay, “Is he-”

_ “Emergency responders found a survivor matching Mr. Hogan’s description,” _ That’s promising. She’ll hold on to that. There’s barely anything left of the blast victims from the other bombings,  _ “Mr. Stark is already in route to confirm his identity.” _

“Perfect,” She’s already out of bed and grabbing clothes, “When’s my flight?”

And there’s another round of hesitation,  _ “Mr. Stark has requested that you remain in New York for the time being.” _ Requested? Happy might be dying. She needs to be in LA,  _ “Ms. Potts is in agreement. A security team composed of baseline humans and demigods has already been granted permissions to secure the hospital as witnesses to these Mandarin attacks have been...uncommon.”  _ Because this guy is so damn good at killing.

The worst possible thing that Cas can do right now is crowd people while they’re trying to do their jobs. Okay….right. She can handle this. At this exact moment there’s nothing that Cas can do to be helpful but the moment that Happy is better (because that is Happy and she refuses to consider the possibility that he won’t recover) she’ll even subject herself to Downton Abbey with him. She doesn’t know why he likes the show but he does and if it makes him feel better then she’ll watch it.

For now….for now Cas needs a workout, “Keep me updated, Jarvis. Happy’s one of ours and this won’t fly.” Rhodey said this was America business but that was before a member of her family was attacked on US soil.

~~~

Cas is panting and sweaty but she’s also relieved. Two hours ago she got the confirmation that Happy is alive. He’s in a medically induced coma and he’ll be in recovery for a long while but he has a pulse and Cas can work with that.

It’s part of the reason that she’s so hyped to go right now. The other reason is that some two-bit hospital worker who will be out of a job if Pepper ever catches wind of who they are leaked Happy’s ID to the press. Talk about confidentiality. Whatever. It’s a hollywood hospital and people like getting the scoop on when a celebrity is in an accident or some such thing. Animals.

As a result of this Cas has been unable to go into the Tower today because there are news crews circling around like rabid dogs. Also, people keep coming to check on her. Piper is actually on break so she’s in Malibu with her father...gods, they could have been there. Mr. McLean is an actor and he could have been there for some holiday special. (But he wasn’t. Calm down. They’re fine.) Piper called Cas the moment that the story dropped and offered to head over herself but Cas told her the same thing that she’s been telling herself. Let the professionals handle it and she’ll visit when she’s given the okay.

Annabeth is Boston for the holidays but Percy swung by to see her. He consented to a rather vicious spar but she needed it. She lost(3-2 rounds; it was close but she’s distracted) but she felt better afterwards. 

She still doesn’t feel great though which means she really wasn’t in the best mindset for what happened next. Jarvis had been keeping the relevant news reports on the various screens around the room. In Lamark High-Rise, he has free reign of all common areas and her apartment but people can ask him to stay out of their spaces. It’s not like demigods are unused to the idea of disembodied beings watching over what they do. At least Jarvis will always answer directly when he’s spoken to.

Regardless, she’s unimpressed with the Mob when her father becomes a headline for exiting the hospital where his friend is in critical condition. Cas cuts what she’s doing with her spear short to watch what he does. It’s only ten in the morning by her which means it’s only seven in LA. They’re cruel to crowd him like this all the way up to his car but they don’t know anything about his headspace right now. Of course the insensitive idiots say things like this,  _ “Hey, Mr. Stark. When is somebody gonna kill this guy?” _ Guy, obviously, is in reference to the Mandarin. Her father stiffens and turns to look at this reporter,  _ “I’m just saying.” _ Just saying….malaka.

_ “Is that what you want?” _ Her father says into the cameras. He’s furious,  _ “Here’s a little holiday greeting I’ve been wanting to send to the Mandarin.” _ And when her father is furious he tends to just go. This won’t end well,  _ “I just didn’t know how to phrase it until now. My name is Tony Stark and I’m not afraid of you. I know you’re a coward,” _ Shit, she’s angry too and she wants to go after the Mandarin for what he’s done but insulting a terrorist on TV isn’t wise,  _ “So, I’ve decided that you just died, Pal. I’m going to come get the body.” _

Threatening a terrorist isn’t wise either. Cas sighs and sits down on the mats. She might as well see where this goes,  _ “There’s no politics here. It’s just good old fashioned revenge. There’s no Pentagon, it’s just you and me. And on the off chance you’re a man, here’s my home address.”  _ He wouldn’t,  _ “10880 Malibu Point, 90265.”  _ He did. Cas's head falls into her hands. Why did he do that?  _ “I’ll leave the door unlocked. That’s what you wanted, right?” _ This particular news station catches her father taking the phone off the asshole reporter and hurling it at a pillar.  _ “Bill me.”  _ Is all he says before driving off.

There was no reason for him to do that. Why did he do that? It’s not just him that’s involved. Cas is here and….malaka, Pepper lives there too. Doesn’t her father realize that he’s put Pepper in danger with that message?

She needs a plan. Cas can’t go to Malibu now that there’s a bulls-eye on it. No, she needs her father and Pepper away from there. Pepper will be easy but her father needs a target for his anger. Happy has security that will protect him just fine. Right, “Jarvis, compile all available data on the Mandarin. Don’t be shy about it either. It’s about time our friends in the Pentagon shared what they have with us. Shield too. Actually, pull from everyone. I don’t care if it’s a McDonald’s drive through cam.” Rhodey might lecture her later but that will be after she catches this guy before he can take her father up on his challenge.

_ “Right away, miss.” _

Cool, “I need a shower….when you’re done get the old man on the line. We’re doing a full projection conference. He doesn’t get to say no.” There are times where she needs to outstubborn her father and she thinks that this may be one of them.

~~~

Her father must have really pushed the speed limit on this one.

She says that because she’s just finished clearing space in her living room for Jarvis to project the virtual reconstructions that they’re going to need for this. With perfect timing, her father’s icon pops up showing he’s synced with what she’s seeing.

_ “You going to give me a stupidity lecture? Pepper beat you to it.” _

Ha, that would be pointless because the Queen is thorough and Cas wants her dad’s cooperation, “No, I will say I’m mad you gave away your intentions before we found a way to track this guy.” The element of surprise is such a useful thing that they don’t have because her father got angry in front of a camera. That struck her father a little bit dumb.

Jarvis takes advantage of the silence,  _ “I’ve finished compiling a Mandarin database, sir. It’s drawn from Shield, FBI and CIA intercepts.” _

_ “Oh yeah?”  _ If her father is impressed he doesn’t show it,  _ “Who told you to do that?” _

“Me,” She’s standing surrounded by a map of confirmed Mandarin bombings. There’s ten. Since May. That means the politicians and national security guys have been keeping a lid on six. That’s probably why he started to interrupt new channels. He wanted to make sure people saw and knew it was him…., “This guy loves putting on a show.” It’s a sick show but it’s a show nonetheless.

_ “Initiating virtual crime scene reconstruction,” _ Jarvis is just full of tricks. Cas wanted to make wider and more detailed virtual reconstructions so that demigods could more easily learn using manipulable graphics instead of pages and words. Those sorts of things are easier for their brains to process than a block paragraph on the anatomy of a drakon. This is a depressing alternative application of her idea but a useful one.

Cas takes a step back as Jarvis rebuilds the destruction of the Mandarin bombing. It doesn’t look like any kind of explosive device she’s seen or used,  _ “Okay, what have we got here?” _ Her father isn’t even fazed by Jarvis’s adaptability. He’s always learning.

Jarvis even pulled up the history of the word Mandarin. Names are important so the title that this man granted himself should give them some sort of insight,  _ “The name is an ancient Chinese war mantle meaning ‘advisor to the king.’”  _ Her father must glance past it.

“That follows,” She moves on, “He’s been lecturing and teaching the President with his little messages.” His tactics are more interesting according to Jarvis, “South American insurgency tactics? Jarvis, are you sure? He’s been projecting a stereotyped oriental image while suggesting he stands with Middle Eastern based extremists.”

_ “This analysis was agreed upon by multiple investigative branches,” _ Jarvis says. Odd that this man seems to be pulling from so many sources but he accuses America of being fake. Who does he stand with?

Her father has already moved on,  _ “But he talks like a Baptist preacher.”  _ There’s a pause,  _ “There’s lots of pageantry going on here. Lots of theater. What do you think, Cas?” _

That her father is entirely correct, “That it’s a contradiction and other than the bulls-eye on the President, there’s been no hint of what he wants.” The Mandarin isn’t pushing any theology or philosophy. He’s just….attacking hypocrisy? Anarchist justice? To what end?

_ “We don’t need to know what he wants to stop him.” _

True but, “Is that what we’re doing? I thought you were picking up a body. J, close the excess and show me just the blast site.” 

Her father lets her comment slip by but has Jarvis pull up the data of the explosion,  _ “The heat from the blast was in excess of 3,000 degrees Celsius.”  _ By the gods, for reference, artificial diamonds are made at that temperature. That is an excessive amount of heat for a bomb but it also explains the lack of shrapnel present in other IEDs,  _ “Any subjects within 12.5 yards were vaporized instantly.” _ Happy was barely outside of that sphere.

_ “No bomb parts found in a three-mile radius of the Chinese Theater?” _ Weird question from her father….

_ “No, sir,”  _ Jarvis is quick to answer.

With how high the temperature of the blast was, “It’s possible that the bomb cleans up after itself. At that temperature most traces would be destroyed instantly.”

_ “Most of the time, definitely,” _ She’s glad that he agrees,  _ “But all of it? Perfectly? Every time?” _ That is a little suspect.

“So what are you thinking?” Her father does know explosive ordinance better than she does.

_ “I’m not sure yet,” _ That’s big of him to admit,  _ “Talk to me, Happy.” _ Jarvis is kind enough to project where Happy was found in their virtual crime scene. Lovely. It reaffirms Cas’s desire to punch the Mandarin in the face...repeatedly.

She doesn’t understand what her father is looking for though, “This could just be how he landed. It’s potentially arbitrary.” Even if it does sort of look like he’s pointing at something.

_ “I didn’t-hmmm,”  _ He didn’t what?  _ “Happy was conscious when they found him.” _ Damn, he must have been in so much pain from what she knows of his injuries. That’s a tough man. What was he even doing at the theater that night anyway? The Chinese Theater was a national monument until the Mandarin chose to target it but they were doing some holiday special thingy. It’s not really Happy’s style.  _ “So, when is a bomb not a bomb?” _ A projected tile rises a few feet down Happy’s line of sight. Her father must be investigating his Happy theory but Cas is more interested in the 3,000 degrees Celsius. That’s very hot. It’s likely specific too.

But still, that’s a strange riddle, “I’m pretty sure if you use it to cause an explosion it’s a bomb.”

_ “Santa Barbara,” _ Ugh….he needs to stop using that as a teachable moment. But fine, Caligula’s yacht was not a bomb until she rendered the engine room unstable in an induced catastrophe.

“That would be ten accidental explosions all conveniently placed with moral and historical lessons for the Mandarin to preach to the populace.” That sounds....far fetched but not impossible? Just really elaborate but the whole Mandarin image is really elaborate. This whole thing is weird. It doesn’t align with any of Cas’s prior experience with the bad guys. The Mandarin is bragging but it feels like a feint of some kind. It’s as if a magician is drawing the eye with sparkles and swords while pulling a sleight of hand elsewhere.

But what’s the play?

Her father pulls what look like dog tags. What? From what she recalls there weren’t any-  _ “Any military victims?” _ Clearly her father doesn’t remember that either.

_ “Not according to public record, sir.” _

That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Cas looks closer and Jarvis was able to clean up a last name for her. Taggart…., “What about civilian associates? Any family members or loved ones of military personnel?”

There’s a brief pause while Jarvis runs his search,  _ “None that I can locate on any available database.” _ That’s just great.

Alright, time to move on. They have Happy pointing out evidence of a military guy being at the scene when he’s not present on the casualty lists. It’s a start for there but Cas is still more interested in the heat signature. There’s something so unique about it that it had to have been tested prior to its application. Therefore, there should be evidence of blasts like it before the Mandarin’s ‘season of terror’ started. The military tests explosives all of the time. Her father was demonstrating the Jericho missile in Afghanistan before that whole thing happened.

Point is a bomb gets tested before it’s used in the field otherwise there’s no way to know what’s going to happen. This is especially true if it’s some new kind of technology and based off of what the blast can do it’s definitely nothing she’s seen before. Her father hasn’t seen anything like it either.

It’s a good thing her father has such versatile satellites up in the sky. If only he didn’t give the network such an irritating name, “Jarvis, pull from the Oracle cloud and map the thermogenic events of the past….” Hmmm, “Call it twelve months. Keep to near 3,000 Celsius.”

_ “Accessing satellites and plotting the last twelve months of thermogenic occurrences now.” _

She backs up while Jarvis does his thing,  _ “Cas?” _ Her father must be curious about why she jumped ship from the crime scene. It’s more than just wanting to look at something other than the slumped Happy projection.

“The first bomb can’t actually be the first explosion.” Her father must agree because he doesn’t move to stop her. However, it’s still a very busy and distracting map with quite a few pillars reaching up to the temperature of interest.

Her father cleans it up for them,  _ “Take away everywhere that there’s been a Mandarin attack.” _ It significantly drops their sample pool. However, all of the remaining sites are in the United States implying that the Mandarin, or at the very least his supplier, is in America.

The fuck?

She’s busy thinking about the implications of that while her father goes through what’s left on the map,  _ “Nope,”  _ San Rafael, California vanishes from the map so it must not be of interest but,  _ “That? Are you sure that’s not one of his?”  _

Rose Hill, Tennessee takes center stage in Cas’s living room. She opens the available data and that’s….strange. The blast measured in at greater than 3,000 degrees Celsius and is labeled as still under investigation,  _ “It predates any known Mandarin attack.” _ And yet it has all the markings of one all the way down to the afterimages of the vaporized victims on the wall.  _ “The incident was the use of a bomb to assist a suicide.”  _ Uh...

Chad Davis, US Army, dead from a suicide bombing which his mother denies is possible. That doesn’t mean that the mother is necessarily correct but it means something. The blast is that powerful, takes five lives in addition to the ‘bomber’, and they call it a suicide. Maybe Cas is the odd one out but that doesn’t look right.

_ “Bring her around,” _ Looks like her father found it.

And Jarvis confirms it,  _ “The heat signature is remarkably similar. Over 3,000 degrees Celsius.” _

That’s all well and good, “We’ve got two military guys at blast sites that look nearly identical.” Now, she just needs to get there and see what she can dig up. 

_ “Ever been to Tennessee, Jarvis,”  _ Her father has the same idea.

And so does Jarvis,  _ “Creating a flight plan for Tennessee.” _

“Me too, J,” Cas waves away the displays and moves to the kitchen. She’ll eat something and then head to the airport.

_ “Cas-” _

“Nope,” She will be as difficult as it takes to get what she wants here, “The coward hurt Happy. I want him hog tied and dumped on the White House’s front stoop.” Cas doesn’t want him dead. She wants him to live in his regrets after she educates him in exactly what those are but she’ll settle for a life sentence. If that. The United States isn’t kind to the people it labels terrorists and in this case that mindset may come in handy, “While you’re at it get Pepper to come here.” Cas actually has a mentally prepared list of reasons why her father should not fight her on this but her line of thought is interrupted by a doorbell, “You’re not seeing guests right now, are you?”

She can feel her father’s scoff, _ “Of course not,” _ But he starts questioning Jarvis anyway,  _ “Are we still at ding-dong? We’re supposed to be at total security lockdown. Come on, I threatened a terrorist,”  _ At least that got through to him,  _ “Who is that?” _

Jarvis sounds long suffering,  _ “There’s only so much I can do, sir, when you give the world’s press your home address.” _ That was far from her father’s greatest hits but usually the security gate is enough to deter people.

_ “Gotta go, kid.” _

Is he serious? “Are you serious?”

_ “I don’t think the Mandarin would ring my doorbell while the press is doing live coverage.” _ Depends on how brazen he is in his desire for headlines.

However, that doesn’t make this a good idea, “Whatever, get Pepper out of the house at least. I don’t like you guys being out so far from help.”

_ “I’ll see you in Tennessee in a few hours.” _

This is such a bad idea, “Wear the suit!” She yells as he hangs up. Hopefully he heard her, “Jarvis, find out who that is for me.”

_ “You are not permitted to spy on the estate, Ms. Stark.” _ Stupid protocols.

“I don’t want to spy on him. I just want to know who that is.” Jarvis hesitates again. He needs some more lateral thinking, “I want to spy on the surprise person, please.” That solves the issue. Cas now has a profile on Maya Hansen, a geneticist and botanist. Cas has never heard of this woman but she’s another MIT graduate...hmmm…

Maybe she’s not that good. The professors up there love to brag about their star students (It’s amazing how many articles have referenced Cas and her father in the school newspaper, The Tech, since Spring 2011.) Then again….she could have been intentionally under the radar like Cas. What would be underground about botany and genetics? That’s like making superfoods (Like Stark IntelliCrops  TM ) or giant cherries. And maybe if people are excited, plants that are extra good at reducing CO 2 (although Cas favors modified algae for that mad science project assuming that it could ever work). That doesn’t strike Cas as a field that would require discretion.

She’s started to flip through some of Dr. Hansen’s published work - which is rather lacking since the 90s - when Jarvis says,  _ “Ms. Stark, you may wish to return your attention to the news broadcast.” _

What now?

Oh….by the gods. That’s now.

“Jarvis, make sure dad and Pepper are aware.”

_ “They’ve taken notice. I will keep you apprised of the situation and monitor vitals for you.”  _ Cas would like to yell that she would rather he get her father and Pepper out of the area but loses the ability to speak when the missile impacts the side of her father’s house.

Her family’s house is where two very important members of her little family are currently existing. Another missile strikes the foundation strutts in the clifface and Cas flinches when the entire structure starts to dip towards the water. The militarized helicopters (where the hell did those come from?) don’t let up their barrage even though the whole thing is coming apart.

And she can’t do anything!

_ “Ms. Potts is clear of the structure.” _ Thank the gods.

That’s one person, “Where’s my dad?”

_ “Confirmed within the Mark XLII.” _ Also good news. She can visually confirm that her father is okay when her grandmother’s piano goes flying out the shattered window into one of the three helicopters that’s still firing on the already destroyed building.

Not long after an explosion brings down another of the helicopters but it crashes into what’s left of the house crumbling down the cliff. She has yet to catch sight of her father in the madness. The news helicopters are brave enough to keep rolling but smart enough to keep their distance since they’re clearly not the targets. Given the Mandarin’s love of the spotlight, he’s unlikely to attack them.

It’s still aggravating that she has such a limited view of what’s happening. Cas doesn’t have access to the Mark XLII systems yet and she’s not going to waste any of Jarvis’s processing when he’s already trying to keep her father alive.

_ “Contact with Mark XLII lost.” _ What? That makes no sense. What’s even worse is that the news crews cut the footage for being too disturbing. Damn right it’s disturbing! That’s her father’s home!

“Well, where did he go?” Cas didn’t see him fly off. In fact she can’t see anything.

_ “I received a system failure notification from the house,”  _ Fuck,  _ “The Mark XLII was only a prototype and is not prepared for flight away from the property as of now.” _

That’s fine. There are other suits that Jarvis can pilot, “All I’m hearing is that he’s still there. Find him with one of the other suits, Jarvis.”

_ “My local servers have been destroyed and I cannot access the other armors.” _

Di immortales! Why isn’t he working with her? “Then initiate Duct Tape protocols and get the armory back online!” It’s like she’s expected to think of everything.

Jarvis isn’t telling her what she wants to hear,  _ “Even if I were to bring online only the essential programs, it would take hours to regain functionality and remote access to the armors from my New York servers.” _

“Shit!” Okay….okay, okay, okay.

_ “Miss, you are being contacted by Mr. Chiron.”  _ Ha….she doesn’t care.

“I don’t need him right now...or any of the others. I need...I need…,” Think, breathe, and focus on the problem. Her father is out of contact but he wasn’t the only one in danger. Pepper is alone with an unknown woman that conveniently showed up right before the attack, “Pepper. I need Pepper. Call Pepper.”

_ “Ms. Potts’s phone is offline.” _ Is he for real right now?

“I don’t care,” Honestly, “Take the phone of the person nearest to her. That botanist woman was in the house so I know you skimmed her device.” They’re under threat so of course he failed to respect boundaries. It’s part of his programming to protect them. He doesn’t bother to defend himself and calls Dr. Maya Hansen for her instead, “And confirm first responders are on the way.” She may need to apologize for being so short with Jarvis later but she went from emotional stressor to emotional stressor when she shouldn’t have had to and she will hold this over Rhodey forever.

Cassie, why won’t you talk about your feelings?

Because last time someone tried to kill Happy and then blew up her father’s house while he was in it.

It’s correlation and not causation but lives are on the line. Why take the risk?

Cas scoops up her phone from her counter and Jarvis automatically transfers it over. The suspicious guest answers after the first ring, _ “Hello?” _

“Dr. Hansen, this is Cassie Stark.”

_ “Shit. Look, Dr. Star-” _

“Don’t care,” She really doesn’t, “Put Ms. Potts on the phone and then stick around. I have questions.” A lot of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the best way to thank readers is to give them a cliffhanger.
> 
> Again, I love all of you and thank you so much for reading my works!!!!


	18. Who's the Kid?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think one of my absolute favorite parts of HoO was how Riordan made Percy go just a little to far and Annabeth had to stop him. It implies that they're all capable of tipping over the edge from Hero to....someplace darker. I'm speaking of course about Akhlys but way back in Lightning Thief a little Percy straight up decapitates a dude and his mother turns Gabe into a statue. So maybe I'm overthinking it.
> 
> It's actually very hard to do well because it's easier to come across as out of character than it is to come across as a near disaster. I played with that. I've shown earlier during the Avenger's arc that Cas can be more aggressive than normal after she was exposed to the scepter's (mind stone's) influence. Now, she's having a really bad time. 
> 
> She watched her father's house get blown up. Happy is in the hospital. And other things are happening. It's building up. She's also by herself so all of this is adding up to her making a few suboptimal choices.
> 
> Eh, I tried.

Cas didn’t realize how worried about Pepper she was until she heard Pepper’s voice through the phone,  _ “Cassie?” _ She’s scared and crying. Cas can hear sniffling….the Mandarin is going to be in so much pain by the time Cas gets through with him.

However, now is not the best time for Cas to be channeling her anger nor is it the time for her to tunnel vision, “I’m right here, Pepper.”

And one of the strongest women that Cas knows starts gasping and crying into the phone, _ “Oh god, Cassie the house and there were these men and they destroyed everything….Tony… Cassie, your father...I don’t.” _ None of this is fair. Pepper is always around to help Cas and keep her on task or aware of where she’s needed but right now Pepper is not in a place to do that.

Which is fine because Cas can do it right now, “Pepper, I need you to stop.” Just for a minute because if Cas thinks about the implications of those words then the situation will not be handled. There’s a pause where Cas can only hear gasping and choked breaths, “Right, are you okay? Are you injured?”

_ “No...no, I’m not hurt,” _ Pepper says and while Cas can’t see her, she can picture Pepper squaring her shoulders and gearing up to move forward. It’s what she’s hoping for anyway,  _ “But Tony-” _

Uh...nope, “No Pepper, we assume dad is fine until proven otherwise.” She won’t believe it until she sees the….she won’t believe it until she sees it.

There’s another pause before Pepper says,  _ “Cassie…” _

“No,” They won’t get anything done if they get stuck on this point. Pepper is in danger in California while Cas is pacing her living room in New York, “After everything, Afghanistan, the palladium, wormholes, I refuse to accept that possibility. Okay? We need to worry about you.”

_ “Me?” _ She sounds out of it but she was also just in an explosion so that’s understandable,  _ “We already….everything’s gone.”  _ It’s frustrating that Pepper seems to be focused on the ruined house but she is standing right in front of it with no one but the surprise guest.

“Number one, no one finds out that we think dad is alive. The Mandarin can think he won for now,” And two is a bit trickier, “Two, when the EMTs and first responders arrive listen to them but if they clear you go to my apartment.”

_ “Your apartment?” _ She doesn’t get why that requires repeating,  _ “I don’t-” _

Cas is trying to be patient but they’re kind of pressed for time, “Look, I’m sorry to drop all of this on you but you’re still in danger, Pepper. The Mandarin has been clear on his stance about civilians and families,” He killed them to push his agenda. Whatever that is.

_ “Oh god…” _ Shit, too much at a time but she’s not going to lie to Pepper.

So she continues, “Yes, dad’s an idiot for giving out his address and we can yell at him later,” There will be a later, “But Pepper, you’re with an unknown woman who has some very suspicious timing.” There’s no response, “Please, I need you to hold it together until I can get to you.” Jarvis already set up a flight for her to LA.

_ “What? Cassie no, if the Mandarin is after us then you should stay in New York. Go...go to Camp Half-Blood.”  _ A considerate thought but Cas will not be hiding.

“And leave you to fend for yourself?” Rose Hill will have to sit on the back burner for now. Should she tell Rhodey? It’s something to consider but….no. He’ll try to push her out of this when obviously the US military is ill equipped to handle the Mandarin. Cas and her father got a lead in what? Ten minutes? She won’t patiently wait for Rhodey’s people to piece this together. And if the military ups the intensity of their hunt in response to a direct attack of an American icon on American soil then it can only serve as a useful smoke screen for her. “You need to get to my apartment. I’ll have Piper meet you there,” Cas snaps to signal for Jarvis to send that message for her. She knows Piper will get there, “In the meantime, we need answers from this Dr. Hansen. The police are on their way to you so worst comes to worst we can dump her on them.”

_ “Okay….we can do this,”  _ Pepper sighs through the phone,  _ “Dr. Hansen said that she….knew Tony.”  _ Huh?

Oh….Oh! Okay, mentally scarring imagery aside, “That’s not a good enough reason to pop in a few hours after dad challenged a terrorist to pistols at high noon.” 

_ “No, it’s not,”  _ There’s another pause where Pepper must be thinking,  _ “So, what do we do next?” _

This could be a bit tricky. Sort of, “As long as I’m on the phone, even if that lady is a threat, nothing can happen to you without the authorities finding out exactly who did it.” Cas stops pacing and confirms the airstrip she’ll be leaving for as soon as the police arrive at what’s left of the house, “Let’s do an interrogation via speaker phone. We can’t have more than a few minutes until paramedics arrive.” 

_ “That wasn’t exactly encouraging, Cassandra,” _ It’s the only reassurance that Cas is currently capable of providing though,  _ “Let’s get this over with.” _ This is hardly the wildest thing Pepper has done due to exposure to Starks. The thing about Pepper is that she’s the most badass CEO there is and when she commands a room and demands answers she gets them. So when she puts Cas on speaker phone and starts talking,  _ “Dr. Hansen, what were you doing here tonight?” _ Cas knows she won’t have to do much in the way of talking other than to make her presence known,  _ “What was so important that you had to speak to Tony?” _

“And be quick about it, please,” Cas said please, “I’m not in the mood for anything else.” The fact remains that she’s not threatening the woman or calling in the Romans as backup. She’s displaying colossal restraint. Pepper must agree with the sentiment behind her words because she doesn’t say anything.

_ “I think that my boss is working for the Mandarin,” _ What?  _ “So if you still want to talk about it I suggest that we get ourselves someplace safe.” _ Ha. This woman is not speaking sense.

Right then, “How about no,” Cas doesn’t want Pepper going anywhere with this woman even if she’s an innocent bystander that got dragged into the crossfire by an unscrupulous boss, “You tell us about your boss and then we can leave you with Homeland Security.” Dr. Maya Hansen is either complict or a snitch and neither of those are something that Pepper should be standing within five feet of.

_ “Cas, wait,” _ It’s like Pepper knew she was about to have Jarvis give Homeland an anonymous tip,  _ “Your boss works for the Mandarin you think? But Tony says you’re a botanist. So...” _

_ “That figures,” _ Dr. Hansen says with a tone that suggests annoyance. Like she has a right to be irritated right now,  _ “What I actually am is a biological DNA coder running a team of forty out of a privately funded think tank.”  _ That sets off alarm bells. If you want to start rewiring a multicellular organism then plants are a good place to start because they can survive all sorts of wobbly changes to their DNA. Chromosomal duplications just make fruit bigger, most store bought strawberries contain four copies of their genes (4n; for the record humans are 2n). Chernobyl flowers are another good example,  _ “But sure, you can call me a botanist.” _ So really, now it comes down to what Dr. Maya Hansen is doing with her plants that would catch the interest of a terrorist sympathizer.

Damn her science brain, “What are you trying to program your plants to do? And how does it link you and your team to the Mandarin?”

Dr. Hansen sighs rather theatrically,  _ “This is what I wanted to talk to Tony about,” _ Cas doesn’t bother to hide her cringe at this unknown woman talking about her father so casually. She’s home alone other than Jarvis.

_ “Oh yeah? You can talk to us about it,” _ Pepper doesn’t take shit from anyone,  _ “This boss of yours, does he have a name?” _

_ “He does,” _ Good, it’s a start,  _ “Aldrich Killian.”  _ And Cas has no idea who that is so she motions for Jarvis to give her the dirt. All she really gets is that he’s the head of this think tank but he has multiple government contracts like with the Air Force….AIM….wait a second.

These are the guys that did Rhodey’s paint job….If this guy is working with the Mandarin then War Machine could be compromised. Not hacked or replicated, because she would have picked up on it during servicing, but these people might know more than they should about Rhodey. Pepper replies before Cas can get her next question in,  _ “Aldrich Killian? You work for AIM?” _

_ “Yeah, when I was first appro-” _ Dr. Hansen is cut off by the sound of sirens. Dammit. Now Cas is feeling paranoid again. If AIM is involved with the US government and the Mandarin then someone high on the power ladder knows about it and is okay with it. That means if Cas goes to Rhodey with a warning then they risk losing the advantage but Rhodey is out there potentially at risk and chasing his tail…. But if they expose this knowledge now then Pepper could be in more danger as a loose thread….It’s not actually a hard choice because Rhodey can take care of himself.

She has to trust in Rhodey’s skills as a pilot and a soldier, move to secure Pepper, find her father, investigate Aldrich Killian, and find the Mandarin.

Seems manageable.

“Pepper, I’ll see you soon, okay? And make yourself at home until I get there because we both know Pipes will too.” It’s a subtle warning to Dr. Hansen that Pepper is expected elsewhere by other demigods and that Cas is on the way. She still doesn’t trust this woman.

_ “Fly safe, Cassie.” _

“Will do, Pepper,” She hangs up after that and rubs a hand over her face. This is not going to be a good holiday season.

_ “Miss, you are being contacted by several Stark Industries legal representatives and press representatives regarding the current status of Mr. Stark.” _

What? “The current status is missing, J. What do they want?”

_ “A number of news organizations are presuming that Mr. Stark is dead,” _ They’re doing what?  _ “Some are already running articles.” _

She takes a deep breath in through her nose and blows it through her mouth, slow and steady, “I don’t want to speak to anyone about this. No one is presuming that my old man is dead.”

_ “Understood, Miss,”  _ Jarvis says evenly and Cas is so grateful for him. He gets it,  _ “I’ll continue to take messages.” _ And she can delete them with her father once she gets him back.

~~~

Her flight is quiet and stressful. Jarvis can pull up nothing but the absolute most basic information on this Killian guy and she doesn’t like it. AIM has the clout to get a US defense contract for the ‘rebranding’ of ‘Iron Patriot’ but there is next to nothing about them anywhere else. That’s strange.

Jarvis has this to say,  _ “Perhaps the government saw value in their discretion.” _ Ha...cute. If that were the case then what use would they be in marketing?

She ignores that. She also ignores the messages from other demigods, from Chiron, from the various Stark Industries branches that want to get a hold of her since Pepper is out of reach. Cas even studiously ignores that voice in the back of her head repeating those words from Mr. D that may as well have been an eternity ago, ‘ _ the whole thing will end tragically.’ _ This isn’t the end of anything and she’s only just gotten started.

Cas reviews the footage of the attack on the house until she’s numb to it and Jarvis tries to track where the helicopters came from to no avail. The Mandarin has very modern tech, is supremely well funded, has an excellent film and editing crew, but dresses like American cinema view China under the Mandate of Heaven.

What is she missing?

It’s during the final approach to LA that something changes,  _ “Call for you, Miss,” _ She’s about to tell him to take a message when he continues before she can open her mouth,  _ “It’s an unknown number originating from Tennessee.” _ Coincidence? Maybe if she was a baseline human that would be the case but Cas is a demigod.

“Screen it, then take a message.” 

If it’s something related to the Mandarin then that means her systems were compromised because there’s no reason for anyone in Tennessee to contact her-,  _ “Kid, it’s me.” _ She stands corrected.

“Dad?” It makes no sense but Cas stands from her seat in the jet, “Are you-no, where are you?” Not that she cares as she takes in a moment to bask in the confirmation that her father is alive. Again. He’s startlingly good at that.

_ “I’m fine. Little banged up but I’m fine,” _ Thank the gods for that,  _ “And I’m in Rose Hill, Tennessee.” _ He left Pepper in the rubble of their house and went to investigate a potential bomb test site. She’s now doubting that her father is okay.

_ “Sir, I am unable to establish a connection with the Mark XLII.” _ Jarvis helpfully points out.

That suit was like a day old, “You already killed him?” Personifying the suits started after her father started to give them names like Igor and Heartbreaker in addition to official designations.

_ “He’s-he’s….we crashed. I can fix him,”  _ She doesn't doubt it but the damage must be extensive to have rendered it offline from Jarvis,  _ “Where are you?” _

She’ll let him get away with that shift since it leads her back around to where she wants the conversation anyway, “In route to LA and Pepper. Possibly the Maya Hansen lady too. I hoped you’d turn up there with repulsors akimbo.”

_ “Good. Tennessee wasn’t planned, it just….happened,” _ How does a flight across the country just happen?  _ “I’m going to need you to look after them while I look into things here.” _ She was already planning on doing that.

However, if her father is digging then he needs more of the pieces, “You ever hear of Aldrich Killian?” It’s possible that they crossed orbits before at a conference or something. Those places attract all sorts of big brain people from all sorts of holes.

_ “Uh...yeah. It was ‘99 in Switzerland,” _ So it was a conference,  _ “He also met with Pepper yesterday about something….Happy didn’t know what.”  _ That’s a lot of coincidences.

Well then, “Dr. Hansen thinks he works for the Mandarin and it was his think tank that made Rhodey into Mecha-Captain America.” There’s too many threads tying this guy to her family members considering that she never met him. Cas doesn’t like it.

_ “Interesting.” _

“Tell me about-

_ “Oh my god, is that- is that Cassie Stark?” _ Is that a child? Where is her father working that has a child just waltzing in?

“Is that a squishy normal human child?” That cannot be safe to have around a damaged Iron Man suit. Estelle Jackson isn’t even allowed near coffee tables unattended because children are that fragile. Cas doesn’t know how fragile precisely but she knows it’s not like the lava wall climbing children out in Long Island and she doesn’t want to test it out.

_ “It’s...yes, he’s lending me his garage,”  _ Okay, there’s more there but she’s going to put a pin in that and switch gears rather than try to talk about a terrorist in front of an actual child,  _ “And where’s my sandwich?” _ It’s so good to hear that her father’s safe.

Right, so a child with garage access probably isn’t that young otherwise the parent wouldn’t leave them alone(?). Also, her father is content to boss him (sounds like a him so she’ll arbitrarily assign a pronoun via heuristics until proven otherwise) around so this person can’t be like a small child, ”Don’t let my old man order you around too much, kid. And thanks for watching out for him.”

_ “...so cool.” _ That’s adorable.

_ “Hey, hey, sandwich and pneumatic actuator.” _ He certainly sounds okay…,  _ “I wanted to let you know that I’m not dead so no inheritance for you yet,” _ Malaka, she has all the stuff she needs,  _ “And I’m going to need to look around here before I can come home.” _

She nods to absolutely no one but whatever, “That’s fine. Don’t miss Christmas. I have the coolest gift planned for you but I’ll just give it to Leo if you’re a no show,” Serious time, “I’ll see what I can find on my end but if the Mark XLII is all busted up then you’ll need me if you’re getting into any fights. For now, I’ll mind the fort.” But he had better call her before taking the fight to the Mandarin.

_ “Stay safe, kiddo.” _

Ha, “Says the old man that’s almost died twice in six months,” He waits for her to be serious again. Wow, “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

_ “Good,”  _ Then he hangs up. He can’t be planning on getting into too much trouble seeing as he’s found a little garage child to help him out. Her father wouldn’t put a kid in danger so that’s a load off of her stress and concern. Instead she can focus on getting back to LA and getting her apartment online. She doesn’t really keep anything going there unless AC/Heating for any demigods or satyrs doing their jobs in the area. There’s none there now though but Piper arrived hours ago with hopefully enough food to keep them all fed for a while.

The jet begins its final approach to the airport so Cas sits down and puts her seatbelt on.

~~~

Cas is more than a little bit stiff as she makes her way down the stairs with her hastily packed back thrown over her shoulder. It was forty minutes to the jet then they had to wait their turn to take off. Now, a normal flight from NY to LA is six hours. The Stark Jet is four because they don’t have time for that noise. Still, it’s a lot of sitting for a person that does most of their work while standing unless social requirements dictate otherwise.

Also, she will admit to some lingering soreness from having sparred with Percy this morning even as she points out that he has a lovely shiner on his face right now. Unless he took a shower and it healed….stupid Big Three Powers.

Still, Cas is stiff, frustrated, alone (physically, she can always contact Jarvis) and very eager to get to Pepper, the Princess, and her apartment as soon as possible. Usually, there’s a car waiting for her near the entrance...ah. There it is. Strange that it’s an SUV though because she doesn’t like to drive them. They’re so bulky and it’s not like she needs to worry about trunk space or seating a family of four.

Stranger still is the unfamiliar man in business attire that steps out of the drivers side, “Ms. Stark, my name is Chris and I’ll be your driver for this evening.” So many flags. That’s a lot of flags. All of the red flags are being flown on that play. This man looks like a typical square jawed all American boy topping off at about six foot two. Problem is Cas doesn’t get drivers. She’ll let Happy drive her somewhere if necessary and she’ll even get in the passenger seat if her father’s driving. Argus can drive Cas somewhere.

Random people do not drive Cassandra Stark around. Jarvis knows this and everyone in Stark Industries knows this (One time Cas got in a taxi when she was fourteen and the driver turned out to be a Laistrygonian. She hasn’t gotten in one since.). People send her rentals or one of her father’s cars.

She doesn’t get drivers.

That doesn’t even begin to cover the faint  _ dangerous  _ and  _ don’t trust _ that’s whispering in the back of her mind. Cas’s goal right now is to get to Pepper and it looks like this person is getting in the way of that.

Also, he called her Ms. Stark. Only Jarvis gets to do that. It was the compromise they came to because Dr. Stark is too formal for family but J won’t call her Cassandra.

How to approach?

“I don’t get drivers, my dude,” Not subtly because Cas ran out of patience several hundred miles ago, “Try again.”

The very plastic smile on the man’s face tenses ever so slightly, “Look, I was just told to be here. I need this job. I've got kids at home.” And her heart bleeds but something isn’t right with this picture. Unless those things are resolved Cas is not getting in that car.

“I’m just going to get a rental from the airport. I’ll make sure you’re still paid,” She very deliberately turns and walks away from this guy, “Merry Christmas and holidays and what not.” Happy Saturnalia strange dangerous man. Cas will fight if she needs to but there is a preference to avoid it if at all possible.

It’s probably not going to be possible, “Please, Ms. Stark, I need you to get in the car.” Right….

“That’s a hard pass,” She waves a hand in the air as she walks away. Although, she should have seen this coming. There’s the sound of footsteps pounding against the pavement and while she totally allows this in an effort to keep things non-violent, the man grabs her by the upper arm.

“I need you to come with me,” Oh look, the smile’s gone from his country boy face.

“Let go of me.” This is going to count as strike two.

His grip (his name is Chris, right?) tightens to uncomfortable levels before he starts pulling her towards the SUV, “You’re coming with me. The doctor needs you to fix her project since your dad is dead.” See? She’s patient and Chris clears up so much of what’s going on.

However, that’s not going to happen, “Sorry,” Cas plants her feet and rips her arm from Mr. Henchman’s grasp. Then she swings her bag into his face and plants a side kick in his chest. She’s totally gentle. That could have fractured ribs if she’d wanted it to. He still flies into the side of the SUV and rocks the whole chassis, “But that’s not happening. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but I’m not someone that you want to get into a fight with.” 

The Chris in question leans back against the SUV and laughs from the person sized dent his body left in the back door, “Yeah, you’re a freak,” Harsh, “But we need you alive since Stark senior is dead.” Gods….wait….

This is, “You’re trying to kidnap me? Alone?” She can’t decide if she’s grateful that they’re so incompetent or upset that she’s been underestimated.

“Won’t need anyone else, sweetheart.” Ew. For that, she’s breaking his jaw.

She almost feels bad for him, “Buddy, I don’t even need my spear for you.”

He moves forward to grab her again because that worked out so well the last time. Rather than allow that, Cas ducks under his arm and introduces his jaw to her fist. The crack is satisfying despite this being a mortal and the man goes down like a lead balloon. Remember kids, if you hit a man with enough force in the underside of their jaw they will lose consciousness.

She cracks her knuckles before going to scoop up her bag. Hopefully he left his keys in the ignition because she still needs a car and the SUV will have to do, “Not bad.” Huh….that usually works the first time and this is a baseline human….or she thought it was. As casually as she can manage Cas stands and watches Chris (if that really is his name) pull himself to his feet.

That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is the glowing veins in his neck, face and mouth about the same color as superheated metal around his injury. And there’s always that part where there’s an audible click as everything snaps back into place, “So….what’s your damage? I mean you called me a freak so I went and assumed you were a regular human.” This guy’s a glow stick so she doesn’t think he has much room to talk about freakiness.

“Oh, I am human, sweetheart,” He clenches his glowing fists and there’s smoke emitting rising from the sleeves of the jacket he’s wearing. Cas doesn’t want to touch those. Leo and Percy could get away with that but not Cas, “Last chance, get in the car.”

Cute. He’s trying to intimidate her. She wonders if the people of the baseline human existence will ever stop trying to do that. “Last chance, walk away.” This is like strike four at this point. She’s so soft and Clar is right about her. She inherited her father’s innate marshmallow status. Unsurprisingly, Chris doesn’t take her up on her offer but tries to close in on her again. Thing is that even if he’s stronger than an ordinary human and has glow powers and a healing factor, he still has mortal reaction times. His fast is Cas’s moderate.

Since it worked so well the last time Cas throws her bag at his face again. He catches it and it immediately catches fire which is unfortunate but tolerable because it keeps his hands busy. Cas kicks him in the chest again but much harder this time and when he flies back into the car the window shatters. It doesn’t stop him, not that she expected to with how fast his face healed. He takes a swing at her with a glowing fist but rather than simply dodge she moves to the outside and catches his forearm with one hand (it’s hot but not as hot as his hands look). Then she brings her other fist down and probably obliterates his elbow.

In competitions joints are cheap shots and penalties but this is real life. Chris screams and tries to pull away which is a reasonable and natural response to a shattered elbow but Cas doesn’t let go. She steps into his space and stomps on his knee instead then she lets go allowing him to fall to the ground. Ordinarily, Cas wouldn’t do something like this but if she’s inferring correctly this man works for the Mandarin. The very same Mandarin that tried to kill her father….she is very stressed and very angry. Everyone has a tipping point and Cas is getting there.

She circles and observes with near clinical objectivity as the clothes covering the injuries she inflicted catch fire, “You know, I was just speaking to a lady doctor earlier after the Mandarin and his goonies blew up my father’s house,” There’s a grunt and a pop as his elbow snaps back into place, “She said she was a DNA coder. Now you show up saying I need to help your lady doctor,” Chris’s leg straightens and he lets out a pained gasp. Hmmm….he’ll be up soon, “And calling me a freak which tells me you’re not from my world. So not magic and not born with your abilities,” He pushes himself to his uninjured knee, “Suggesting that you have some pretty genetic modifications,” He stands fully. “Tell me, how do you know Dr. Maya Hansen?” There’s a surprised look on his face that’s as good as a confirmation in Cas’s book which means that Pepper is with an actual mad scientist right now. Shit.

That is some very impressive but volatile looking science right there. This healing blows Paolo out of the water and if Helen were here she’d be drooling.... What happens to a book if it gives him a papercut? Mosquitos?

“I was told to bring you in alive and capable of working,” Chris is still going for intimidation and she’ll give him props for the scare factor. The burning clothes are a nice touch but Cas stood next to the Hulk a few months ago so this isn’t impressive even by normal human standards, “That doesn’t mean unharmed or talking.”

“Sorry, my dad told me not to get into cars with strange men,” Should she give him another chance? Yeah, she should cover her ass with the gods if this is about to get lethal, “This really is your last chance, Chris. I don’t know if you were serious about kids or not but I won’t hold back after this.” Cas has a father that likes to stop her heart by almost dying so she doesn’t want to inflict that on someone else.

That doesn’t seem to faze this guy so here’s to hoping that the family comment was a bluff. It’s not something that anyone likes to talk about but Cas has killed other demigods before. The Princess Andromeda is a prime example of that. They all tried their best to minimize casualties against the titan army but the odds are that some demigods succumbed to injuries that Cas inflicted on them during the battles. She’s never killed a mortal before though baseline or enhanced. Cas is still hoping that it won’t come to that.

“That’s never going to happen, sweetheart.” She thought not.

Maybe….this is going to be a bit gruesome but with the way he’s been healing he should survive. He lunges but Cas is ready and so is her spear(Surprise, Cas is big enough to admit she needed it.). Chris screams as she pins him the SUV like a butterfly in one of those creepy collections. She backs up and his super heated hands immediately start trying to destroy the shaft, “That won’t work. That spear was made in the forges of Mt. Olympus,” Here comes the poker face, “Right, where’s the Mandarin?”

“Let me go, bitch!” Worth a shot. He’s glowing and his shirt is burning while his body tries to heal the wound but there’s a spear in the way.

“I will,” Eventually, this is far from the most pleasant thing she’s ever done so it’s not like she wants to keep doing it, “But first I need to know about the Mandarin.” Since Chris is occupied Cas puts out the small fire on her bag….she won’t be using it again but it looks like the stuff inside was only minimally damaged so her phone is fine. “Otherwise I’m going to drive away with you as an ornament.” He continues trying to pull the spear out which he could do so she’ll have to make this quick. She snaps to grab his focus, “Come on, I’ll settle for more about Dr. Hansen.” And a phone appointment with Chiron because she just pinned a man to a car with her spear….gods….

He yells and tries to arc himself back but that is not a good angle if he’s trying to get the spear out of the door. Cas really jammed it in there. His feet nearly give out under him and he stops, “I was supposed to get you while another team goes to get Potts.” What?

Why do they need Pepper? This guy said they wanted Cas to fix a problem….so leverage? That’s dumb. RIght, this doesn’t matter. She needs to get out of here and get to Pepper, “Thanks for sharing. Hold tight, okay?” Cas keeps out of his reach and jumps into the driver’s seat.

“Hey wait!” Oh good, the keys are in the car.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let go,” Right, after she gets up to speed. Cas starts the car and drives off. When the odometer hits twenty miles per hour she dismisses her spear and Chris fumbles off a glowing mess. She doesn’t look back as she exits the area. He may come after her later if he gets a second chance but Cas has higher priorities right now like the five missed calls from Piper in the last five minutes.

Talk about timing.

She hits redial and speaker before throwing it on her bag in the passenger seat, “Piper, what’s going on?”

_ “That’s what I wanted to ask you,”  _ Huh?  _ “Your Queen isn’t here yet.” _ What?

So where is she?


	19. Piper Knows What She's Doing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a lot of thinking about which demigod I wanted to bring in to this part of the story with Cas. I considered Clarisse but I see her as an enabler for Cas which is the opposite of what she needs right now. I decided on the character I chose to make Cas's best friend.
> 
> Plus, I do love Piper and I will forever think that she got screwed over in ToA.

It’s entirely possible that Cas is freaking out right now. “Oh Strategos, I need you to talk to me or I can’t help,” Piper says from her seat while Cas paces her barebones LA apartment trying to figure out how exactly things got to this point. Pepper never arrived with Dr. Hansen but she was never contacted by a hospital or Stark Industries about Pepper being admitted for testing or observation. Therefore, Pepper disappeared enroute to her apartment and Jarvis upon activation immediately infiltrated traffic cams for her(It’s illegal. She knows that but circumstances.). Problem is they don’t know what car Pepper was supposed to be driving. If it was Dr. Hansen’s car then it sure as hell didn’t show up in city limits.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Cas doesn’t mean to snap, “I can’t find Pepper.” After having promised to protect her, Cas cannot find Pepper and she’s freaking out. All of these resources at her fingertips and she can’t find her, “Isn’t there anything in Katoptris?”

“You know that there isn’t.”

Cas doesn’t mean this either, “Then why are you even here?”

Piper crosses her arms, “Because you asked me to come here. Stop walking around like a moron. Eat something and talk to me.” Piper does mean that.

“I don’t have time for that. I need to find-”

“Gods, you haven’t been this bad since we found out that we had to catch your mother,” Piper cuts her off, “Cassie, I need you here right now. Pull your head out of your Pepper fixation.”

Needless to say, Cas does not respond well to that call out, “Erre es korakas!”

“No, you’re going down a dead end rabbit hole and chasing your own tail at the same time. If they took Pepper to make you cooperate then she’s probably unharmed,” That still doesn’t help her, “I think you’re forgetting that there’s an important person you haven’t informed yet.”

That brings her up short because, “Fuck,” Cas hasn’t told her father that she lost track of Pepper. She groans and collapses into the nearest seat which Piper takes advantage of by dropping a plate of mozzarella sticks on her lap.

“This is why you have me,” There’s no reason for her to be that smug right now, “I expect to be rewarded for this on Christmas,” Whatever the Princess wants at this point as long as Cas gets to beat the shit out of the Mandarin, “Jarvis, call Tony at that Tennessee number, please.”

Cas rubs one temple with a finger while absentmindedly eating a mozzarella stick. She’s nearly off the rails right now and thank the gods for Piper. This is the kind of shit that gets her siblings killed. She should have contacted the others immediately. The phone rings twice before that kid picks up,  _ “Hello?” _ Ugh.

“Hey squishy human child,” Piper pulls a face at her but Cas never got a name, “Where’s my old man?” 

_ “My name’s Harley,” _ Well then. She already knows one Harley so that’s going to get confusing but whatever.

“Harley then,” Piper is smiling blandly at her right now and Cas resists snapping at her again because that won’t help, “Same question.”

_ “He went to go talk to Mrs. Davis,” _ He says like she’s supposed to know who that is. Davis….Oh. Like Chad Davis, the questionable suspected suicide,  _ “Did you know that your dad has an anxiety issue?” _ Crap. Cas’s eyes shoot to Piper’s and she watches as several pieces slot into place in her best friend’s mind.

Cas keeps her voice level, “How do you mean?”

_ “I asked about the wormhole and aliens and then he sort of freaked out and threw snow at me,”  _ That sounds about right. The wormhole is the trigger then. Okay, now to express how to avoid this in the future.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Cas says and hopes that this helps so that this kid doesn’t set off her father at the worst possible time, “For future reference, try not to bring those things up again.”

_ “I wasn’t gonna. I’m not stupid,” _ The kid huffs into the phone. Right then, a squishy human garage child with teeth and he’s been helping her father, or trying to, so she’s going to owe him when this is over.

“Never said you were,” She ignores Pipers whispered ‘you were thinking it’ and completes her thought, “I need you to find my dad and get him to call me at this number. ASAP. This is real hero business. You up for it?”

_ “Like now?” _

“Right now, Harley’s quest. Find my dad and make him call me.” She’s sending a child out on an errand not a quest. It’s not like it’ll be dangerous.

_ “Okay,” _ And then he hangs up….Mortal kids are weird.

Piper clears her throat and Cas looks back towards her, “Finish your mozzarella sticks. Then we’re talking.” Joy. Cas is going to have so much fun giving Piper context over the various minor throwaway comments of the past several months that suggested that things were less than stellar at home.

~~~

They did get through most of that conversation before they were interrupted. Jarvis turns on the TV to another Mandarin broadcast causing Cas and Piper to exchange looks that can be easily translated to ‘what now?’ The initial screeching intro takes Piper by surprise but not for long,  _ “Mr President,”  _ There’s the Mandarin looking as proud and certain as ever,  _ “Only two lessons remain and I intend to finish this before Christmas morning.” _ Shit….a quick date check confirms that it’s December 24 now. The camera pulls back and Cas nearly gasps,  _ “Meet Thomas Richards.” _ Thomas Richards is prone on the ground while the Mandarin points a gun at him,  _ “Good strong name. Good strong job,” _ That’s probably not all Thomas is.

_ “Thomas, here, is an accountant for the Roxxon Oil Corporation,” _ Oh no.

“Aren’t they…?” The ones that got away with that oil spill shit. The nature spirits and the satyrs were not happy about that and some of the naiads had families that were affected.

“Yep,” This man is going to die, “Pipes, I don’t think….”

“I know but I’m not looking away either,” There’s so many reasons to respect Piper.

_ “But I’m sure he’s a really good guy,” _ The man is sobbing uncontrollably on the ground and the Mandarin isn’t even reacting to the sound,  _ “I’m gonna shoot him in the head live on your television in thirty seconds.” _ She can barely make out Thomas’s choked out ‘no’ as he begs for his life,  _ “The number for this telephone is in your cell phone. Exciting, isn’t it, imagining how it got there?” _ Extortion and traitors, it’s not hard to come to that conclusion. It’s also not hard to guess where this is going next,  _ “America, if your president calls me in the next half-minute, Tom lives.” _ Yep,  _ “Go.” _

“Do you think the President will do it?” Piper doesn’t look away from the screen showing the Mandarin lording over Thomas Richards.

“Doesn’t matter,” This man is dead. His head isn’t covered so he’s seen too much of the Mandarin’s operations, “The President shouldn’t do it as a leader but as a human being he should. Regardless, when he calls and the Mandarin shoots Thomas Richards in the head it’s going to tell the world that the POTUS bows to a terrorist and that the terrorist can do what he wants.” Almost on queue the phone starts to ring but the Mandarin doesn’t move to pick it up.

“Pick up the phone! He’s doing what you said so pick up the phone!” Cas imagines that if the Mandarin were in front of them right now then he’d be swept up in Piper’s angry charmspeak. Not that it matters, the Mandarin sharpens his aim on Thomas Richards and fires. They both finch but don’t look away, “Oh gods…” Cas really hates guns.

She expects the broadcast to end but it doesn’t. The murderer has more to say,  _ “There’s just one lesson left, President Ellis. So run away, hide, kiss your children goodbye because nothing, not your army, not your red, white, and blue attack dog, can save you.” _ Rhodey….Cas isn’t going to be able to rely on her uncle to help her because he’s about to be very busy.  _ “I’ll see you soon.” _ And then the feed cuts out.

Di immortales, this is an entirely different ball game than what Cas has seen in the past. Both of them fall into a few minutes of silence while they come to terms with what they just saw. After she calms herself, Piper tries to round out the end of their previous conversation from before they watched the Mandarin execute a man on live TV.

It’s a sharp conversation change after watching an execution but it’s a good distancing tactic, “Cassie,” Piper has her eyes closed and her hands in Sherlock's thinking position in front of her face, “You don’t need to deal with everything by yourself.” Everything likely includes more than the terrorist and probably is meant to focus on her personal family matters.

Cas shrugs completely unrepentant about her decisions, “I didn’t. Rhodey helped.” Rhodey’s like a living saint or at the very least a supremely patient person. He’s also in danger but she has to trust him.

“Cas…”

But she just shakes her head. It was never going to be something that she talked about with them, “It was my dad’s stuff.” However, if it’s at the point where an actual child notices that something’s wrong then they need to do something about it. Her father can’t be flying around as Iron Man and having anxiety attacks. Jarvis can only do so much and while Cas is a decent co-pilot she doesn’t know how to pilot the suit remotely or otherwise. “We have more important things to worry about right now like the executioner on the TV.”

Piper has adopted Cas’s preference for dealing with things so that they don’t get in the way later, “If it’s messing with you too then it’s also your stuff,” See Piper is being logical and Cas is not here for that right now.

“Yeah?” She’s kind of focused right now, “Well, I’m fine and Pepper isn’t.” She doesn’t know when Pepper was grabbed.

_ “What do you mean Pepper isn’t?” _ And that is her father. She didn’t even know he was on the line.

Cas glares in the direction of one of Jarvis’s cameras, “Thanks for the warning. Really, great job, J.” He relays a non-answer to her about saving time. Ha, ha. He thinks he’s funny.

_ “Cas?”  _ Her father is asking her questions that she isn’t prepared to answer so she looks helplessly at Piper.

Piper, gods bless her, rolls her eyes but takes this one for the team, “Tony, Pepper never arrived. Now, Cas had a run in with a super hot dude at the airport and she’s alright but he said something about a doctor wanting her and holding Pepper as leverage.” That sums up the last several hours.

There’s a moment of silence while Cas waits for her father to speak,  _ “They have- you lost Pepper?” _ She resists the urge to shrink in on herself at her father’s tone.

Piper looks like she’s about to say something but Cas waves her down. Her father is angry and rightfully so but she’s fairly certain it’s not actually directed at her, “Dr. Hansen must have told someone where they were going. Piper being here and me being on the way would have spooked her. I didn’t think Dr. Hansen was a threat until I met the glowing man.” She seemed more like a nervous whistleblower(snitch) than a diabolical mad scientist and Cas made a poor bet.

“That you beat the shit out of,” Piper helpfully adds.

“That I beat the shit out of,” She repeats because that guy was a true malaka, “I think he’s alive though.”

_ “Glowing man?” _ At least the anger’s leaked out of her father’s voice,  _ “Wouldn’t happen to have set anything on fire? Healed miraculously?” _

Ah, so Dr. Hansen made more than one, “So you met one?” Actually…, “How’d that go without the suit?”

_ “Two down,” _ Sounds like her father,  _ “Turns out, Chad Davis? Not a suicide.”  _ She already figured,  _ “The Mandarin is using disabled military volunteers to cause the explosions.”  _ That she did not figure,  _ “Haven’t worked out exactly how yet but it’s AIM.” _

Which means Rhodey is in danger too, “Are we calling Rhodey?”

_ “Already did. He’s hunting the Mandarin. We’ll take away his weapons and find Pepper.” _ Cool,  _ “I think I can pinpoint where he’s hiding….McLean.” _

“Yeah, Tony?” Piper, who had been quiet during the exchange, seems surprised to have been addressed.

_ “Do us all a favor and keep my kid out of trouble,” _ That’s not insulting or belittling.

“Not even you can pay me enough for that job,” That hurts Cas’s feelings. She is feeling more afloat now though. She can easily handle monsters and even adjust for alien armies but a direct attack on her family while she can only watch….that turned out to be a lot for her to handle.

_ “I’ll be in touch,” _ Is all he says before hanging up. This sucks.

What sucks even more is when Piper gives her an assessing look before saying, “You’re going to tell your father about Zeus’s warning once all of this is done.”

And that just completely brings Cas up short. She hasn’t even thought about that since she found out that Happy was injured. However, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t going to think that’s a bad idea, “After hearing about a child giving him an anxiety attack, you want me to tell my father that not only will the aliens be back but they’ll be coming for something. Something I have no means to find.” Cas doesn’t even know where to begin digging for Zeus’s warning.

“Yes,” Piper is not backing down on this, “And let me tell you why. Tony used the Mark VII during the Chitauri attack and don’t think I missed you calling the most recent one the Mark XLII.”

Cas fails to see the problem, “So dad is focusing on shoring up the planet's defenses,” Which is crazy to think about, “And it’s probably helping the anxiety. I did it after Gaea. You remember Annabeth dragging me to the dining pavilion when I forgot.” Because she’d been designing such and such new defense measure for the camp or this and that offer to guarantee that the Romans remain friends long after the Heroes of Olympus are gone.

“That’s thirty five suits since May. That’s insane given that I have a vague outsider’s idea of what goes into making those things,” Okay? “What does he plan to do with them? Are there suits of armor for every man, woman, and child on the planet?”

Cas snorts, “Nah, they’re bio encoded to authorized personnel only. The old man doesn’t give out weapons. Many of them are designed with specific problems in mind….he made a suborbital one. Mark XXXIX is designed to withstand short space flight.” Likely in the event of another wormhole, “Also, Jarvis is authorized to pilot them.”

“Right,” Piper scrunches her nose, “Skynet aside,” And completely ignores Cas’s offended noises on behalf of Jarvis, “Your dad is already planning to fight the aliens in round two. Wouldn’t it help him focus his very specialized responses if he was also aware of the motive?”

It sucks when her friends are all rational and Cas really doesn't want to, “I don’t want him to feel obligated.” With everything that her father already does, he doesn’t need to add anything else on top of it. It’s different to suspect that the attack is possible versus knowing that the attack is coming.

Piper starts laughing at her, “Too late for that, genius. Tony is obligated through you,” Her smile softens when Cas glares ineffectively at her, “Didn’t Rhodey tell you to be there for him? How’s he supposed to know that you believe and back him if you don’t let him know that he’s right?”

Cas groans but concedes victory to Piper this round, “I hate you.”

Piper starts laughing again, “Uh-huh, I’ll believe that when I see it.”

It’s not long after that and another round of mozzarella sticks that they get an update from Jarvis,  _ “Miss, I have prepared a flight plan to Miami and have received relevant information regarding the Mandarin and Project Extremis for you to review during the flight.” _

Piper jumps up first, “Good. What are we waiting for?” Is she planning on coming?

“Uh…,” That’s not cool, “Aren’t you supposed to be spending Christmas with your dad?”

“We’ll have New Years,” At Cas’s reluctant expression Piper switches it up, “I’m going even if I have to talk you into it.” That settles that but before she can get up another call comes through.

_ “Cassie, did you get the files on Extremis?” _ Weird that he feels the need to confirm...unless did very mortal Harley send it?

“Yeah, Miami. Where are we meeting?” Miami isn’t exactly small.

That seems to surprise her father though,  _ “Miami? What are you talking about? I set the string of Jarvis in the Mark XLII to send you the Mandarin’s location after using AIM facilities to triangulate.” _ Which surprises her. The auto repair function must work really well. Soon that suit’s offline software will be able to interface with the live version of Jarvis and they’ll be in business. Hopefully, the Armory will be functional again soon too because a whole lot of Iron Man back up would be nice.

“J says Miami so that’s where we’re going.”

_ “Alright, give me a sec. Gonna have Harley reboot the suit manually and give us the actual location. It’s gotta be far East.” _ She’ll let him but Cas is inclined to trust the suit.

There’s a dial tone but it’s picked up fast. This Harley kid must be sitting on the phone,  _ “Harley, tell me what’s happening. Give me a full report.” _

_ “Yeah, I’m still eating that candy,” _ Cas snorts and so does Pepper,  _ “Do you want me to keep eating?”  _ Ha, a few hours with her father and this is what happens to the mortal child. Cas wants to meet him for real now and not just because he helped them out.

_ “How much have you had?” _ He is a dad.

There’s no hesitation from Harley’s answer,  _ “Two or three bowls.”  _ Cas completely ignores Piper’s groan of ‘there’s more’ in favor of stifling her laughter.

_ “Can you still see straight?” _

_ “Sort of,” _ Yep, this kid is great.

“Awesome kid, you’re doing great,” Cas also ignores the face that Piper is giving her, “Do us a favor and put the suit on the phone, please.”

_ “Jarvis, how are we?” _ To avoid confusion Cas has mentally been referring to this specific string of code as the Mark XLII only. When this suit was damaged there was still a sliver of Jarvis in it that went offline. J, is still there but he’s separated from his servers and his main cloud of personality that is actually with Cas and Piper right now.

Computers. Sort of. It’s complicated but not worth the time to explain Jarvis’s offline capabilities vs his fully powered ones.

This particular string of Jarvis is going to have difficulty reintegrating because he also sounds like he’s had too much candy,  _ “It’s totally fine, sir. I seem to do quite well for a stretch, and then at the end of the sentence I say the wrong cranberry.” _ And he’s still a bit damaged but seeing as he got to the point where he crashed this is a vast improvement,  _ “And sir, you were right.”  _ Her father doesn’t need to hear this,  _ “Once I factored in available AIM downlink facilities I was able to pinpoint the Mandarin’s broadcast signal. It’s no wonder Ms. Stark and I were unable to locate it sooner.” _ Oops.

_ “Kid?” _

She feels the judgement from all over but mostly from Piper because she’s right there, “I was only going to tell Rhodey where he was but that’s not important. Where is he, Jarvis?”

_ “I can confirm the signal’s origin is in Miami.” _ Right, because that’s what he already sent her.

Her father isn’t buying though,  _ “Okay, Harley, I’m gonna have to walk you through rebooting Jarvis’s speech drive, but not right now. Where is he really? Just look on the screen.” _

There’s a pause where she imagines the child that can sort of see straight after eating an uncertain amount of candy squinting at a computer display,  _ “Um...It does say Miami, Florida.” _ And that’s a trifecta. Onward to the sunshine state.

_ “Right, first things first, I need the armor,” _ Uh….this shouldn’t have been enough time for it to have completed repairs given that her father would’ve had normal garage resources to work with. There’s nothing wrong with a normal garage but they don’t typically carry titanium.  _ “Where are we at with it?” _

_ “Uh...it’s not charging?” _ There’s the sound of screeching tires through the call. She can hear her father’s labored breathing and she looks up at Piper who just lifts her hand like what can she do. If they were in the same room then Piper could help more.

“What’s that mean, Harley?” Maybe she can give her father a minute to catch his breath, “Is it not connecting to a power source or is the power source insufficient?”

Luckily, suit Jarvis answers,  _ “Actually, it is charging but the power source is questionable and may not be sufficient to restore Mark XLII functionality.” _

_ “What’s questionable about electricity?” _ Her father sounds very upset and it has Cas stiffening from across the country,  _ “Alright, it’s my suit, and I can’t…” _ Shit,  _ “I’m not gonna…” _ What does she do?  _ “I don’t wanna….” _ He’s really distressed.

“Dad? Hey, I’m right here,” She can do this, “We can fix it.”

_ “Oh, God, not again,” _ She hears the car door open.

“Dad?” The other’s have all gone quiet so this one must be on her, “We’re going to be fine. You know that.” There’s no way that they’re going to lose, not when they know where the bad guy is and they know what the bad guy is doing. Sort of, she hasn’t seen the files yet.

_ “You don’t know that….how can I…? Without the suit?” _ This is about control. That has to be the source of the anxiety. Her father lost control of the situation because the armor is down. Her father couldn’t actually control the battle against the aliens. The nuke was a Hail Mary and he got lucky. That wasn’t control,  _ “Oh God, what am I gonna do?” _

Well then, her father didn’t have the suit when he took control back in Afghanistan. He wasn’t using the suit when he took control of his life again while dying of palladium poisoning. He wasn’t even wearing it when he faced Loki, “You don’t need the suit, dad. You’re Iron Man. You made yourself Iron Man. You make the things that beat the bad guys.” Come on. She needs him to get up and get to Miami then she can help in person.

_ “The suit’s helpful, kiddo.” _ He still sounds like he’s breathing heavily.

“The suit is a tool. You’ve built one for almost every occasion,” Please, let this work, “Build something else.” Her father makes things with his own two hands. She’s watched him do it. She’s done it too and sometimes they make things together.

_ “Okay,” _ That one sounded back to normal,  _ “Thanks, peanut gallery.”  _ Yeah, he’s going to be fine.

He sounds like he’s got his focus back but that means, “Please, wait for us before you storm Bowser’s Castle.” 

_ “Sure, kid,”  _ Then he hangs up.

She sighs, “Thanks Harley, keep watching over the Mark XLII and remember to drink water with that candy.” She knows how to keep young people alive.

_ “Got it,” _ He hangs up too. It’s nice that other than the initial surprise at talking to her this one doesn’t seem overly excited about talking to ‘superheroes.’

She brings her attention back to Piper who looks so done with all of this, “Last chance to back out. Point of no return and all that.”

Piper just shakes her head, “Your family is weird.” Eh, by comparison to some, “We’d better get going. I don’t need to be you to put the odds in favor of Tony having fun storming the castle without us.” Truth, Cas doesn’t want to be left out of the action on this.

~~~

Cas has watched the playback several times now. It’s to the point where Piper moved to another part of the jet so that she didn’t have to see it, “J, play it back one more time.” He obliges and a video labeled ‘Project Extremis Injection Tests Phase 01 06/25/09.’

An unidentified man begins speaking,  _ “Everybody, before we start,” _ The videos show what the files identify as disabled military personnel in a dungeon, complete with bricks and arches and squeaky metal doors, _ “I promise you looking back at your life, there will be nothing as bitter as the memory of that glorious risk you prudently elected to forego.” _ It cuts to the volunteers (lab rats? Desperate people?) being strapped into metal gurneys with IV bags and an unknown substance being introduced to their systems. Well, unknown for a second because that orange glow that overtakes them is familiar,  _ “Today is your glory.” _ It looks agonizing even as the female volunteer regrows her left arm like a magma starfish. Then it goes wrong. The man on the end doesn’t tolerate the treatment for whichever of the multitudinous reasons that something like this could go wrong.

The scientists conducting the experiment don’t try to help him.  _ “We gotta get out of here!” _ Is repeated instead. They run and he detonates. Her father said before ‘when is a bomb not a bomb?’ and it was a trick question. These aren’t bombs or acts of sabotage. They’re a misfire because that power is meant to be contained and used by the individual like her buddy Chris but someone went critical like this man did while Happy was nearby.

Aldrich Killian is taking advantage of disabled veterans and turning them into weapons. She didn’t think she would even find a human that compared but….Cas can’t ignore the similarity of these soldiers to the demigods who felt abandoned by Olympus and fell in with Kronos. The military failed them after their injuries so they joined the honeyed offers of Killian.

The question remains….are all of the Mandarin bombings a result of people losing control of these gene hacks or do they know which people won’t tolerate it and use them anyway? Which is why Cas is flying across the country again to Florida and inching just a tad too close to the Sea of Monsters. Also, it’s Florida. Yes, Cas fights monsters but Florida Man is a whole other category of crazy.

Gods, she thought her demigod problems qualified as out there but this stuff is insane.


	20. Once Again...The Bad Guy's Motivation is that He Hates Her Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The IM3 arc is the last time that I will not be altering the plot of a main MCU film(well...CA:WS may stay mostly the same, I have to watch it again). Starting with Dark World things will be going very differently.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's stuck around this long. :) It took me long enough to get here.

Her father didn’t wait for them. She found the motel room he’d bunkered down in with some cash and a little zest from Piper was enough to find out that they just missed him. Now she’s crouched in the woods outside of a very pretty looking old house on Christmas Eve.

“It’s a castle,” Yeah, Piper’s right this thing is a castle. They both have their basic vests on under their clothes and Piper has Katoptris but there’s a fair amount of men milling about the extensive grounds. She kind of wants to blow it up since they blew up her father’s house, it’s only fair, “Guarded by glowy healing people.”

“Eh,” Probably not, “These guys have big guns. If I could spontaneously combust from a papercut I wouldn’t keep that much gun powder on my person unless absolutely necessary.”

Beside her Piper sighs, “When did guns become normal?”

“Probably around the same time aliens did,” She’s a bit distracted by trying to pick out patterns but nothing seems to be popping out at her, “We need to find out if the old man’s in there or not.” The last thing they need is for this to turn into a double hostage situation, assuming that Pepper is on the property. Bad guys only need one hostage to maintain leverage but the spares can be used to teach lessons.

“I can ask,” That’s a tempting offer.

“There’s dogs. You can’t charmspeak a dog,” Dogs are smart sometimes but not that smart. Then the most wonderful thing happens and Cas is starting to believe that she may be one of the Fates’s favorites. That is both terrifying and exhilarating. A repulsor propelled object flies by overhead, “I found my dad.” She gets up and circles around to follow the trajectory. The Mandarin’s wall is only like seven feet high so what’s the point of it?

Even Piper just flings herself over it, “Cas, don’t run off.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Princess,” There’s already chaos erupting on the tiered and landscaped grounds as more pieces of the Mark XLII swoop in like a swarm of Iron Man birds. There’s gunshots audible from outside the main building but it’s all coming from inside which is just perfect. The guards are running towards the house and not watching the perimeter.

She pauses when a military helicopter flies away from the complex along with….is that War Machine? Ummm….?

An actual intercom plays,  _ “All personnel Stark is loose and somewhere in the compound. Repeat, Stark is loose and somewhere in the compound.” _ She grins.

“Gods, he wastes no time,” Piper says with exasperation as they stay low and creep up the lawn and closer to the building. Until she hears a guy hit the wall above her and then come crashing down in front of her. The poor man makes eye contact with her just in time for Rhodey to jump down and punch him in the face.

She looks up mentally confirms that War Machine just flew off but Rhodey is here, “Rhodey, who’s in my armor?” Rhodey can call it his all he wants but she’s been putting the work in for War Machine (no, she will not call it Iron Patriot.). It’s hers and he pilots it.

“Cassie, what the-”

Piper jumps in before he can do the concerned family thing, “We had no idea you’d be here but Tony’s probably at the house.” Seems like the most likely possibility.

“Right, a fire breathing asshole took the suit,” They can breath fire? Hers didn’t do that. If he had then that fight on the tarmac would have gone very different. Is there a power differential between the test subjects? Very possible. It’s likely that the more powerful doses of Extremis would have higher perks and risks….it’s bad but she wants to play with it. Not on people but maybe she can take it back to Dr. Hansen’s plants. Jarvis said she was a botanist.

Now, Cas would like to say that she kept it cool as she moved up to the house where they were expecting to find her father not waiting for them. She doesn’t.

She doesn’t keep it cool when she spots Iron Man by the front door, “Dad!” Nope, she straight up tackle hugs the armor. It doesn’t have the desired effect because it’s metal and it doesn’t feel very nice to slam into it as hard as she can. However, she couldn’t do this to her father under normal circumstances because he’d probably break something. Cas thought she’d be cool because she knew he was alive but like Rhodey said ‘affirmation of life hug.’

Her father briefly returns it before stepping away with a, “Hey, kiddo.” She’s been called that a lot recently. He pops the face mask so she can see him and damn he’s busted up, “Later, once we have Pepper back we’re doing the reunion thing.”

But, “She’s not here.” Pepper was supposed to be here.

He glances away for a moment, “Aldrich Killian killed Maya Hansen and dosed Pepper with Extremis.” Oh gods.

Oh no…, “But she’s alive, right? She’s okay?” He wouldn’t have suggested otherwise if that wasn’t the case.

“She’s not here Cas but she’s going to be fine. We’ll fix it. We’re good at that.” Of course, Dr. Hansen suggested that there was something wrong with Extremis. They fix that and then Pepper is fine….potentially with flame powers but that’s okay.

“Not to break up the beautiful moment but we have to move,” Rhodey’s right. Cas steps back and waves her father forward. Wherever they go next she has his back.

“Right, I have something to show you anyway,” Her father says like their party is amenable to surprises at this point in time(Cas still doesn’t like them all that much.).

~~~

The remaining guards in the castle/house are not exactly a challenge. Piper just talks them into a stupor and then they knock them out. The unnecessarily scantily clad women are sent on their merry way to hopefully locate shirts.

That’s all well and good but as Cas and Piper are double checking for any surprises on the main floor she hears Rhodey say, “This is the Mandarin?” What did they find?

They walk into the cluttered and dirty room with a TV playing soccer and a ping pong table. The whole place reeks of stale booze. But there in a chair with a beer can clutched in his hands is the Mandarin. “Hi Trevor, Trevor Slattery,” He’s English. This is a doppelganger. It has to be a body double, “I know I’m shorter in person. A bit smaller. Everyone says that,” Cas looks towards her father because she has to be hallucinating this, “But, um, hey, if you’re here to arrest me there’s some people I’d like to roll on.”

Her father cuts him off before he can get going, “Here’s how it works, Meryl Streep.” Meryl Streep? The actress? Why would….oh. The Mandarin is an act. If that’s the case then who’s the man behind the curtain? And what’s the point? “You tell him where Pepper is and he’ll stop-”

“That won’t be necessary, Tony,” Piper takes a step forward with a smile that’s all teeth. She locks eyes on….Trevor (?), “Mr. Slattery, you know if you answer our questions we might be able to help you with the police.” Cas wouldn’t count on it but she’ll let Piper make this part easier. She doesn’t think Rhodey and her father would go that far but this is cleaner. Faster too. Also, Cas has been a little violent in the last….however many hours so this helps even if she really wants to break Trevor’s face.

Cas waves Rhodey back and moves to stand over Piper’s shoulder just in case anyone tries anything, “Like I said, I didn’t know people were getting hurt. It was just a job.” But it looks like they have the place on lockdown.

Piper nods in sympathy and this guy has no idea that he stands no chance, “Of course, you were just doing your job and I’m sure everyone thought your….performance was great but now to help yourself you should tell us about the plan.” Piper is literally the only person who could enter a room and yell ‘tell me your plan’ and probably get an honest response. None of her siblings have this level of control.

“Right, right, I know it’s off the coast with a big boat. I can take you there.” It is so weird to hear that voice come out of the Mandarin’s face. It’s like watching American Psycho and then finding out later that Christian Bale is from Wales, “And something about the Vice President.”

She moves to the side towards Rhodey as Trevor continues to tell Piper everything he knows as well as wax poetic about his innocence and his status as a puppet. Does he even realize that he actually shot a person on TV? That’s not going away, “So….how’d you get here?”

He crosses his arms and looks at her like he wants to know the same thing but Cas asked first, “Suit got hijacked by one of the Extremist soldiers at a suspected Mandarin site,” She’s about to ask how that happened when he says, “They overheated the suit and it shut down.” That’s a problem.

“Yeah,” Not exactly her fault though, “We didn’t anticipate 3000 degrees Celsius but I can correct for that later.” Probably….maybe. She’ll come up with something to fix it, “Sorry I didn’t warn you sooner. I knew AIM was dirty but it was all right after the house and-” Rhodey drops a hand on her shoulder.

“I get it, Cassie,” Rhodey squeezes a bit just to make sure his message gets through, “There was a lot going on even for you to handle but I think we did okay.” Yeah, okay will cover it until they get Pepper back at which point they’ll be awesome again.

Her father breaks up their moment by mentioning a speedboat.

“Cassie, try not to blow up this one,” Piper doesn’t have the best timing for that comment. She tries to communicate with a look that she’s not that bad, “By my count four out of four boats you’ve been on have exploded.” The thing is Piper’s not wrong. The Sea of Monsters, The Princess Andromeda, The Argo II, and the Julia Drusilla XXII.

However, “Leo blew the Argo II, not me. And I’ve been on dad’s yacht.” So really, it’s three and half out of five. Also, the confederate ironclad was entirely the fault of Clarisse.

“I’m never leaving you there unattended again. That’s an 80% chance of combustion,” Her father sounds horrified and she just sighs. Cas likes the yacht.

~~~

What the actual fuck is her life? Actors hired to play terrorists….by Aldrich Killian who, according to her father, never got over the fact that her father didn’t want to talk business while drunk at a New Years party… Also, despite what Trevor Slattery said this is not a lovely speed boat. It probably was when it was new but it smells a bit like the house did(stale beer and poor life choices). 

Her father, currently hooked up to a car battery to get as much extra juice in the Mark XLII as possible, says, “If he’s right about the location, we’re twenty minutes from where Pepper is.”

Rhodey is trying to be the rational third party here, “But we also have to figure out this vice president thing, right?” Eh….if the President’s phone is compromised…

“Is that a good idea?” Cas says from where she’s keeping calm using the sights. Another couple of hours or so and this should all be over. She wants to go home and be with her family, maybe visit Happy, “The POTUS’s phone was compromised. Can we guarantee that whoever we get a message to is clean?” It would be awkward if they called a secret service person and they worked for the Mandarin.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. I’ve got the VPs number,” Her father looks slowly at Rhodey like he wants to make sure that he understands, “Which I’m calling right now.” Cas snorts and Piper mumbles something along the lines of ‘the sass is too damn high.’ An entirely false statement because that’s impossible. Her father and Rhodey take the call with the Vice President while Cas focuses on Piper.

“Thanks, Pipes,” She’s been putting up with a lot of shit from Cas.

Piper pretends to examine her nails when they both know she doesn’t actually care about them, “I was due for my annual megalomaniac fight, so no big deal.” Sort of true but still. From the stern of the boat they both look up when Rhodey says ‘They’re using the Iron Patriot as a Trojan Horse’ and he feels the judgement coming from both of them. A Greek analogy really wasn’t necessary there. They hang up the call but Cas wants to make sure that Piper gets this.

“Piper, really,” Cas tries to be serious, “This would’ve been impossible to handle without you.”

“Yeah, you’re a mess without help,” That is oh so true, “Don’t forget it.” Cas wasn't planning on it.

Then Rhodey goes and says something terrible, “We gotta make a decision. We can either save the president, or Pepper.” What? “We can’t do both.”

Umm….Cas doesn't actually have anything to say to that because she doesn’t see how that stipulation came up. Cas is here to save Pepper and catch the Mandarin (who is actually Aldrich Killian and he can breath fire).

Jarvis speaks up in her new earpiece generously provided by her father. With the suit mostly functional and in immediate proximity she can have Jarvis constantly in her ear again. They should just give him permanent access to the satellites to prevent this in the future and the technophobes can cry about it. But this is good news  _ “Sir, I have an update from Malibu. The cranes have finally arrived, and the cellar doors are being cleared as we speak.” _ Oh Frabjous Day! The Armory will be accessible soon which is going to make everything go so much more smoothly. Cas turns and mouths ‘backup’ to Piper who smiles in return.

Piper missed out on watching Iron Man throw Elias’s sad little cultists around but she’s probably going to see Jarvis throw quite a few Extremis soldiers around instead. It’ll probably be a higher quality entertainment.

“And what about the suit I’m wearing?” It is a little busted up but it should(hopefully) hold together.

_ “The armor is now at 92%,” _ Perfect and her father agrees because he rips the improvised charging cables out before approaching Cas and Piper on their end of the boat.

Piper has a very reasonable question, “You’re going to fly off to Air Force One to fight the guy wearing Iron Patriot,” Cas’s gasp of betrayal is ignored, “When we’re so close to Pepper here?”

Nah, “No worries, Princess. This is the Autonomous Prehensile Armor.” Cas says as her father extracts a headset from the helmet and puts it on. Almost immediately the armor starts to fly off of him and reform in the air while moving in the direction of what she assumes in Air Force One, “This stuff is better than magic.” Piper elbows her in the side for her trouble. She just sits back and waits. There’s not much she can do for this part. 

Her father heads below deck while Rhodey stays up to steer (She’s not allowed to for stupid reasons.) It actually only takes her dear uncle thirty minutes to get impatient which says a lot about how all of this is weighing on him. It is the president that’s been put in danger on his watch so that probably has something to do with it, “Give me some good news, man.”

“I think they all made it,” Her father says. She’s going to assume that’s good news but she’s not certain what the danger was.

“Oh, thank God,” Rhodey’s celebration is a little premature because….

“Yeah, but I missed the President,” That sucks but he’s probably with Killian now and therefore Pepper. The bad guys like to keep their winnings together usually.

Rhodey is a bit disheartened by this news, “You couldn’t save the President with the suit. How are we gonna save Pepper without it?”

“I don’t see why you’re so worried, Colonel,” Piper says while adjusting Katoptris on her belt, “These are actually really good odds for us.” Is it bad that Piper has a point?

“Now, I’m not doubting you two but from what I hear your fights tend to get a little destructive,” Cas’s mouth drops open in shock but she doesn’t get the opportunity to defend herself before she hears ‘house party protocol’ in her ear. Then it becomes a fight not to laugh in vindictive satisfaction. If her fights are destructive then she wonders what a swarm of Iron Man suits will do.

These malakes don’t stand a chance. Let’s see, LA to Miami is about 2300 miles give or take and all of the armors can make Mach 3 at least so….one hour max to back up. The odds are ever in their favor.

They can do that, “Rhodey, don’t be a sourpus. We’ll get the President,” He’ll owe part of his rescue to demigods which is a fat bonus, “And we’ll get Pepper. While we’re at it, Pipes and I will catch a Mandarin for you.” He might be a little roughed up but Cas still wants Killian to rot in a prison cell while Cas and her family live their best lives.

Rhodey doesn’t look very reassured but no matter how hard she tries Cas is very angry right now. It’s just an undercurrent of straight up anger.

~~~

The boat pulls up at a pier after the sun’s gone down. It’s dark and industrial with three hundred foot cranes, crates, and barrels illuminated by flood lights and there’s something niggling in the back of her head, “This place looks familiar,” Where did Cas see it? “Was there a movie shot here or something?” Rhodey and her father ignore her probably thinking that her question isn’t relevant.

Piper answers her though, “This is where the Roxxon Oil spill happened. It was on all the news channels and nymphs and satyrs were pissed.”

Oh yeah…., “I remember. Hedge was down right murderous especially when the Roxxon execs all got acquitted...oh.” Supposedly because President Ellis didn’t press the issue….wait execs like Thomas Richards...but Killian doesn’t care about the environment, “It’s a good place for dramatic poetic justice against the President for allowing it.” Ah well, she can speculate later for now she follows Rhodey up the ladder.

“Kid, now might be a good time to arm thyself.” What?

Cas looks at her father like he’s nuts, “Sure, let me summon the glowing spear while we’re using shadows for cover.” She’ll be calling that forward at the last possible second. Piper huffs quietly next to her but she makes no move to draw her dagger.

“Hey Tones, you’re not gonna freak out on me are you?” Harsh but it is important that Rhodey asks that. Her father has a gun right now. So does Rhodey and she’s trying not to let it bother her.

“I hope not,” That’s not the answer she was hoping for from her father but she bites her tongue to keep from commenting. Piper squeezes her wrist in reassurance and Cas peers around the equipment they’re hiding behind to get a better idea of where she needs to be. There’s a lot of activity further down pier towards the defunct oil tanker as well as plenty of noise and moving shadows to disguise their movements.

They advance to the edge of some shipping containers and Cas crouches to peer around Rhodey’s leg. Damn….the President has been loaded into War Machine and Cas takes that as a personal offense against her. AIM somehow overrode her security protocols and sure War Machine doesn’t get the benefit of Jarvis to defend it but some think tank pencil pusher outmaneuvered her. It rankles.

She’ll have to fix that somehow in the future and maybe now that her dad seems to be in a bit of a better place (doubly so once they save Pepper) he’ll sit down with her and Rhodey to rework it. They’ve also got to deal with the heating problem….later.

For now she should focus on the fact that someone is about to roast the president like a Christmas ham. Because like Rhodey says, “He’s strung up over the oil tanker. They’re gonna light him up, man.”

“Viking funeral,” Her father says, “Public execution.” Cas thinks it looks more like Nero’s back at it which is an unpleasant thought since she’s back on the water. She’s a Greek demigod. Her people are meant to sail but she only seems to be good at blowing up ships….that comes after Pepper and the President are safe.

“Yeah,” Rhodey agrees, “Death by oil.”

Cas turns to Piper, “I’m gonna need you to focus on the POTUS because my head’s on Pepper.” Piper nods to agree with her and her mind is already twisting with the many ways she can get herself up there.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Her father says, “Who said splitting up?” No one but this isn’t going to be a one at a time type of deal.

Cas decides to break this down as fast as she can, “Killian took Pepper. She’s his hostage so she’s with him,” Probably, but there’s no space for a prison here, “He’s also made sure he’s the man behind the scenes directing. So, I put him with the stage crew and camera guys,” Probably...hopefully. Her inferences haven’t been doing so well but the theatricality behind the Mandarin is so precise and with the stakes as high as they are on this ‘lesson’ their Bond villain can’t be anywhere else but there, “That’s likely a room with a view. Also, can’t broadcast with lights and cameras down so again media central is the best place to go,” She leans back to catch another glance at the President, “But we can’t leave him there.” And the overseer’s office way up high. She likes the looks of that….a fire breathing dragon man has locked the Queen in the tallest tower.

Gods, her life is weird.

Piper follows along and she hopes the old men do too, “We can always rock paper scissors to see who gets which demigod. But it’s really a conflict for Cas to go with Tony,” She’s right but this isn’t the military and these are also extreme circumstances. It’s not like Piper’s never worked with Jason. And Cas has frequently gotten up to all sorts of shenanigans with Annabeth.

Rhodey realizes what just happened though, “Like Tony and Cas are going after anyone but Pepper and Killian right now,” She’s so glad he gets it, “I have to focus on the President.” They all nod because that’s true. There are priorities. It's just that Cas isn’t capable of prioritizing the POTUS and it’s best if she’s honest about that now. “Alright, Piper, you’re with me.” Piper nods to Cas before she moves out with Rhodey.

“Hey old man,” She grins at her father, “How soon ‘til back up?”

His returning smile is cold, “Can’t be more than five minutes.” Ha. She almost feels bad.

“Nice, I’d like to take the control room before that but we’ll make it work.” She leads the way across the pier to a flight of stairs opposite the ones Rhodey took. Splitting up isn’t conducive to team survival but it’s good for completing objectives so she makes sure that they stay spread out, “As soon as Jarvis arrives try to not destroy everything before we’re out of the way.”

“Says the demigod,” He has a point but….Cas takes a jolting step back into her father and steadies him as a searchlight goes by three feet ahead of her on the catwalk. Honestly, it’s a miracle that they haven’t been spotted yet but this place is very busy. Lots of moving parts provide lots of distractions for their little sneak team. 

Anyway, “Catwalks, cranes, flammable materials….there’s a lot of breakables is all I’m trying to say.” They’ve made it maybe fifty feet off the ground when the sound of gunshots makes Cas dive for cover with her father behind a duct of some kind. “Is that at us?”

“Don’t know,” He holds the handgun Rhodey gave him in one arm which probably isn’t the best for stability and aim. She doesn’t comment since they're both trying to find the source of the shooting.

_ “All personnel. Hostiles spotted inside the perimeter.” _ Comes up over the PA system and Cas has to wonder who got spotted, Piper or Rhodey. It can’t be Cas and her father. So much for the scenic route to the overseer’s office. Cas would be better off climbing that pillar about twenty feet away.

“You good if I make a break for the office?” She’s not going to ditch her father without his armor in a hostile environment but she’s also the one with the vest on under her shirt….it’s going to need a serious cleaning after all of this running around.

Her father stands from behind their cover and brings a hand over his eyes to watch the horizon, “What do you think?” No way….she watches the approaching lights with excitement. All functioning sets of Iron Man armor come flying in piloted by Jarvis and establish a perimeter. Privately, Cas wonders how anyone believes that Jarvis is just a user interface and not a fully sentient being.

“They look amazing, dad,” Not even Daedalus himself could make such diverse and brilliant creations. The Labyrinth is alive, without a doubt, but it lacks a certain human element that Jarvis definitely has. He learned it, “You and J did good with these.”

“Hmmm,” He thinks it over, “I’d give you 23% design credit on most of them.” What?

“You used my ideas folder?” That’s mean. He didn’t even tell her that he’d looked in it. Then again….that big hulking one does sort of look like he’d be good for disaster relief.

“Are you gonna sue me?” No, but she’ll hold this one over his head for a while. As they watch the show the gunfire pitters to a standstill while the sounds of repulsors echo all over the pier, “Merry Christmas, kid,” He says while walking more into the open. That confidence is back in the set of his shoulders that’s been missing for a while. Well, he is in his element with his suits while their opponent has been cornered and vastly outgunned. They brought this on themselves, “Jarvis, target Extremis heat signatures. Disable with extreme prejudice,” She laughs and shakes her head before planning her path up.

Around them Jarvis’s voice echoes,  _ “Yes, sir.” _

“What are you waiting for?” Did he just cross himself? Cas wonders if her father can enter a church without catching fire. Some people still call him the devil incarnate along with a whole other host of accolades, “It’s Christmas. Take ‘em to church.” She loves her dad. It’s partially the showmanship. Really, it’s top tier.

It’s also top tier entertainment when the suits start swooping in and throwing those Extremis soldiers around. They’re not perfect and Jarvis will probably learn a lot about tactics from this particular encounter because….welp….the Mark XXX just died in a fiery explosion. Unfortunate but unless she’s mistaken he took four glowing people with him.

She doesn’t know them all by name because Cas didn’t see even half of these suits in person before tonight but her father directs them around like a football coach calls out plays, “Heartbreaker, help Red Snapper out, will you?” Him and Jarvis have this. Then one explosion goes off just a little bit too close to that office that’s calling her name and she knows it’s time to go.

“I’m going to find Pepper,” She shouts over her shoulder as she starts running for a ladder, “Try not to die again, old man.” She doesn’t get to finish before a suit of armor lands behind her father and folds around him.

“Nice timing,” He says as the chest piece locks into place, “We’ll cover you. As soon as you have her get clear.”

“Got it,” Actually, two Extremis soldiers land a few yards down from her. Cas can probably win but she’s pressed for time so she climbs on top of the banister instead, “Jarvis,” Cas locks eyes on a suit headed in her direction, “Give me a lift to the top level.”

_ “Of course, miss,” _ Jarvis answers in her ear. Cas smiles and without any doubt or hesitation she jumps and is immediately swooped up by what she thinks is Heartbreaker. He’s got a specialized chest RT so the name fits. Now, it’s a serious time but Cas rewatched Zombieland (2009) recently and she has to agree with the rule ‘Enjoy the Little Things.’ It’s been a rough few days so she allows herself a laugh as Jarvis flies her on a rollercoaster of a path to the office,  _ “I believe this is your stop.” _ That it is. Cas sends Heartbreaker back into the fight with a jaunty salute.  _ “I can confirm Ms. Potts is inside.” _ Perfect.

“Thanks, Jarvis,” She thinks it over, “Make sure there’s a suit available to fly us out once I have her.”

_ “Very good, miss.”  _ Then he flies off again leaving Cas hundreds of feet off the ground with a truly explosive and chaotic battle going on below her. Rhodey and Piper are probably fine however, she dismisses all thoughts of them. She needs to focus on what’s in front of her. 

She summons her spear and kicks the door open and then proceeds to nearly puke whatever is left of her last meal (mozzarella sticks and airplane snacks) all over the grated floor, “Pepper!” Nothing else matters at that point because Pepper is strapped to a gurney like in those horrible videos and hooked up to an IV line. She needs to close that first.

Cas crosses the room without taking much in other than the fact that it’s empty. That’s dangerous and risky and it smells like a trap. She doesn’t care because Pepper doesn’t respond until Cas gently taps the side of her face with her hand, “Cassie?” Pepper breathes out like she can’t believe Cas is actually there.

She can’t have that, “In the flesh,” Cas is quick to close the IV and gently remove it. She tries not to show he panic when the pin prick wound glows and heals instantly. This could be worse. It could’ve been so much worse because Pepper could have been like Chad Davis but she’s alive in front of Cas right now. She can work with this, “Merry Christmas, by the way,” Her father said so. It may be after midnight….who knows? Time’s relative.

“You’re really here,” Pepper sounds like she’s on the verge of tears and Cas cannot wait to lay into Killian but first she needs to get these restraints off without causing Pepper anymore pain. She’s been through enough.

Cas looks up and makes eye contact with the exhausted looking woman, “Yep, I have told you that you’re stuck with me. I’m like a leech. Dad’s here too,” The mechanism disengages and Cas pushes the harness over Pepper’s head. She’s expecting it when Pepper practically falls out relying on Cas to support her. Extremis bioelectrical potential or not, standing for hours while in pain is exhausting to say nothing of the strain Extremis must be putting on her body’s energy stores. Pepper’s probably going to eat like Cas until they can find a way to deactivate it or at the very least dilute it.

“I knew Tony’d come,” Oh? “He left me a message and apologized for his ugly Christmas present.” That sounds like a worthwhile later story for now Cas turns to leave with Pepper’s arm around her shoulders and her spear in her hand. Then she immediately curses her tunnel vision for numbing her to the danger behind her.

Another explosion rocks the office they’re in but Aldrich Killian doesn’t seem to mind, “Cassie, right?” This guy has a used car salesman grin and she doesn’t like it.

“Who are you?” She knows who he is, it's just….she’s never met the guy and she hates him. Cas wants him to feel small and insignificant after all of the shit he’s pulled. It’s really the best way to get back at people.

“I see you take after your father,” Eh, everybody’s a critic.

“Look, guy,” That makes him look insulted, “I’m Ms. Potts’s Uber driver and we’ve got places to be. Christmas and the like,” She nods at the door behind her, “Step aside. Iron Man is dismantling your little strike force and the President is as good as saved. You lost.” Cas very much hates and wants to hurt this man for what he’s done to her family. He’s literally attacked every member of their hodgepodge little unit. However, Cas has Pepper and that takes priority over everything else.

Sadly, Cas cannot say that she’s surprised when Killian chooses to hold his ground, “You know,” He actually steps closer, “I met your dad back in Switzerland in ‘99,” And starts glowing.

“Yeah,” Cas has zero sympathy for this highly unstable human being, “I got your tragic villain origin story out of my dad hours ago. You know you’re holding a grudge from when I was ten years old. Get over it,” She was literally a child back then. This guy needs to let some things go. And get therapy. They have that in prisons, “That’s like forever ago and it can’t be healthy to obsess over things like that.” Is this a time to give the bad guy life advice? Probably not.

However, her line is still open to Jarvis so he’s aware Killian is here. That means her father knows too,  _ “Kid, incoming East window. Three seconds.” _ Cas grins and pulls Pepper a few steps to the left just in time for Iron Man to crash their little shindig. He has a repulsor aimed at Killian before the man even realizes what’s happened, “Shot to the heart took out your buddy on Air Force One but what happens if I blow your head off.” The helmet tips towards her just slightly, “Get Pepper out of here.” The door she came through is a no go but left looks promising. Even though it goes against everything she wants to be doing Cas dismisses her spear and tightens her grip around Pepper. “Go!”

Pepper isn’t a big woman so it’s easy for Cas to maneuver her while her father nearly stalks to block them off from Killian. He looks disgustingly amused by their efforts, “That’s an adorable little family you have there, Tony.” He looks right at Pepper and Cas wishes she was tall enough to hide behind because she can feel Pepper cringe, “I’ll be with you in a minute. Okay, Pepper?” Cas changed her mind about the prison cell. Her father can kill this guy now.

She picks up the pace and practically drags Pepper to the door. Killian seems content to wait until they’re out of the way to try and make and move….or maybe there’s like ten Extremis soldiers outside the door. Gods, she hopes not.

_ DANGER! _

The sad part is that they almost made it out the door before the explosion that Cas had a fraction of a second to react to. She feels a smidgen of guilt because Pepper has already been through so much but Cas lunges for the far wall and the structural integrity of the doorframe. This happens in time for what was probably a suit self-destructing near something flammable to rock the office and collapse the ceiling and floor.

Her father and Killian are lost in the chaos and the noise, Pepper hits the ground first, and Cas braces herself over the woman. There’s no way Cas could hold most of this up if it falls on them, not for more than a few seconds, but it would be enough time for Pepper to crawl out. Thankfully, the gods are with Cassandra tonight because the beam she ends up catching is less than a Prius, anything more than that and she’d be holding for seconds rather than minutes. “Pepper, this whole place is coming down,” She looks so scared but they don’t have time, “You need to get out the door. I swear I’m right behind you.” Pepper is distracted by the ceiling and Cas crouched over her, “Move!” It’s so wrong for her to yell at Pepper and she’ll say sorry later.

Pepper shimmies herself out and crawls out the door. Perfect….until another explosion hits the building driving Cas into the floor with a scream. Nothing’s….scratch that….she’s uncertain if anything’s broken but her leg is definitely pinned at an awkward angle. Could be worse since she can slide her spear out and warp but first she needs to confirm that her jumping from point A to point B won’t destabilize what’s left of the office, “Cassie!” No, no, don’t come back in, “Are you okay? Where are you?” Pepper Potts, terrified when she’s in danger but willing to walk right back into it because Cas may be hurt.

Cas holds out her free hand towards Pepper and tries to shift to relieve some pressure on her knee but a jagged piece of metal starts digging into her side, “Stay out there!” This office is holding on by a thread….fuck it. Cas summons her spear and slides it out next to Pepper. She warps out so that she’s sitting against the banister.

She looks up to see War Machine fly off with what appears to be two cling ons. Good, he got Piper to leave with him. A whole lot of stuff is on fire right now so it’s not a good place to be unless absolutely necessary. Funny that she didn’t get notified of their departure…. “Jarvis, exit please,” Silence. A quick check reveals that her earpiece is gone. That held on for a handful of hours. Her last one survived the entire battle against the Chitauri, “Shit.” Okay, that’s fine. Stairs work. When Cas pulls herself to her feet she studiously ignores the laceration in her side in favor of gripping the banister and her spear. It’s a good thing too because the catwalk they’re on shudders as more explosions rattle the support structures, “Let’s go.” She moves to lead Pepper away and thankfully she goes quickly.

The suits are still swooping overhead but gunfire has died down. It’s probably because guns are entirely ineffective against Iron Man while Extremis is working for them….if full body tackles count as working. Whatever, it’s providing an adequate distraction as they try to make their way down (Cas is still bleeding by the way).

Or it did.

Then the office came crashing down and caught itself on the catwalk Cas and Pepper were standing on. Her spear is forgotten in favor of clinging to Pepper as they fall maybe forty feet and roll onto a shipping container. Well, Cas rolls. Pepper hits the corrugated surface and screams in pain. Her Extremis…., “Pepper!” Nothing’s in an obviously wrong location but the way she glows ticks all of the danger boxes, “You’re okay,” Cas is by her side immediately watching for...she doesn’t know. Detonation?

Pepper turns onto her side and struggles to push herself up but flops back down. That’s not promising. It’s instinct to pull her to her feet but Cas freezes in place when she hears a thump on the other end of the container. It’s not the right sound to be Iron Man.

“I’m glad we got to meet like this,” It’s Killian…..where is her father? “I’ve been wanting to see how Extremis holds up against demigods.” He puts some weird emphasis on demigods that makes Cas want to throw Pepper into a fireman’s carry and runaway. She doesn’t have anywhere to run right now though(the nearest flat surface is thirty five feet down and on fire) so she slowly rises to her feet and steps away from Pepper but towards Killian.

“Your airport guy wasn’t all that impressive,” Disconcerting? Yes, but only because he glowed.

“Airport guy?” Good, be confused. Blab and talk. It can only better her chances of being noticed by the suits currently targeting Extremis, “You must mean Chris. He was new. Sadly, he didn’t make the cut,” So he’s one of those villains. Nero did the same. The Giants did the same. Kronos did the same and tossed away his loyal pawns when they stopped being useful.

Cas looks around the destruction and hopes to catch a glimpse of her father or any help really but with the flames being the only source of light outside of zipping repulsors she can’t tell, “What are you even doing right now, Lite Brite? The President’s gone. You lost. So what’s the point?”

“The point?” Ugh, he grins again and Cas doesn’t like it, “Well, killing you will work.” 

That’s creepy but, “Buddy, in the long list of big bads that have tried to kill me, you don’t make the top twenty,” This is completely truthful, “For reference, the Chitauri are like number seventeen,” Due to mutant space whales.

“Confident,” He needs to stop smiling, “I like it,” It’s a modern tragedy that Cas hates him in return. She’s done waiting for this to resolve itself with time so Cas swings her spear around like a staff and clocks Killian in the face with the shaft which she follows up with another kick to the chest.

The kick was hard enough for a normal human as was her first hit but the problem is that Killian is tougher than the airport henchman (Chris). Also his glowing hand brushes her ankle before she finishes chambering back her leg causing her vision to white out from the burning pain. Cas stumbles back screaming. She once had the thought that ribs are the worst. She was deluding herself. It’s burns. Burns are the worst. She blinks to clear her vision and wiggles her toes to mentally confirm that her foot still functions. It’s agonizing but it’s her own fault for only sending Killian falling back instead of flying.

Killian regains his balance at the edge of the container (a terrible decision really) while his face heals. It’s so cheap. This is worse than fighting Percy in a pool of water because at least she can touch Percy without fear burns. Gods, there’s ocean all around them. If she had him and Jason right now this would be over already.

Ah well, she doesn’t and Cas lasted sixteen years without Aqualad and Supes around. Her ankle kills right now but she’ll manage.

She always does.

Around them more cranes collapse but from what she can see the fighting is tapering off. There’s still Iron Man suits flying around so her father must be somewhere(Right?). Killian doesn’t seem to care from the casual way he rubs the glowing spot on his chest where she kicked him. He went all in on the Mandarin thing with the dragon tattoo(Shirt must have burned off against her father). How did he even get the tattoo with Extremis in his system? Cas just takes her stance between him and Pepper mindful of her ankle(What is it with her and these minor injuries? So annoying.).

She could keep talking but at this point Cas is getting twitchy and she’s the one with the reach as long as Killian refrains from spitting fireballs or something like that. His shoulder looks like a good place for Cas to put her spear and she wants him gone quickly because Pepper’s continued silence is starting to worry her. Killian is roughly nine feet away which is fine by her if kicking him off didn’t work out then she’ll drive him off instead.

He wasn’t expecting it.

Weird because there’s footage of her fighting aliens with Captain America but hey, she’s not complaining. Cas finally got to stab this man. It works out because Cas learned her lesson from round one. Killian is leveraged sideways, her spear is dismissed, and this time she kicks him in the back. Now, the glowy boss man goes over the edge and into some fire.

He should be fine.

“Pepper!” But Pepper is unconscious and glowing, Cas’s ankle still hurts, and she hasn’t figured out how to get them down to the ground. It’s not promising but her best option seems to be to wait and flag down a suit….they’re all busy though and she can’t call them. Despite being slightly frantic, Cas gently shakes Pepper’s shoulder, “I need you to wake up. I’d carry you but the surroundings are a little unstable for piggy back rides.” No response….she’s breathing though so there’s that.

Really, she just wants a way down so the universe of course provides but not in the way she wants. Something, a suit, a body, a red explosive barrel from a video game, she doesn’t know, but something slams into the shipping crate tower she’s standing on. Cas tries to hold on to Pepper when she feels the gravity shift but something grabs her and suddenly she’s flying….but Pepper isn’t. It’s a suit. A suit grabbed her but left Pepper!

“Javis! Jarvis go back!” No, no no, he must have registered Pepper’s heat signature and identified her as Extremis first. (“Target Extremis heat signatures,”....no.) “That was Pepper! Go back!”

Not that he listens and she can barely hear him,  _ “Mr. Stark has ordered that I evacuate you to the perimeter.” _ Motherfucking safeguards against Skynet. Jarvis doesn’t need them, what he needs is more listening skills.

“You left Pepper!”

_ “Mr. Stark was very specific,” _ No….she thrashes but quickly gives up because it won’t help. She’s too far away by now.

He drops her hundreds of feet away from the fighting.

There’s smoke and fire and explosions but she’s completely out of the loop as to what’s going on. Cas knows that running back in will make everything more difficult because her father has without a doubt been informed that she’s been escorted from the area….but Pepper.

Her ankle decided that this is a good moment to stop holding her weight and Cas drops to her ass. In her focus on getting to this point she left all of the medical supplies with Piper so she’s kind of stuck because she doesn’t know where Pipes is either.

She doesn’t know what to do now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmm....I'm not overjoyed with how this chapter turned out. I may come back in the future and rework some parts of it but for now I'm content that this is it.


	21. Pressing Forward with the Best of Intentions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM3 is over and we have laid the groundwork for MCU Phase II.
> 
> Thor: The Dark World was the first time I looked at a MCU movie and thought 'what were they thinking?' As previously mentioned Dr. Selvig was done dirty so I fixed that but I'm also using that movie as a stepping stone for how the Riordanverse ties into the MCU.
> 
> It's going to be a fun time and I hope you all stick around to enjoy it.

Cas has come to the shocking conclusion that she’s grown used to luxury. This shouldn’t be significant as she stands at the base of the pier watching it burn and collapse. Afterall, what do fancy cars and clothes have to do with this shitshow? It’s very simple. Cas has grown used to the luxury of having all of the resources and answers at her fingertips and now she doesn’t.

Is Pepper alive?

What happened to her father?

Are Rhodey and Piper actually okay?

Has Jarvis finished with all of the Extremis soldiers?

She doesn’t know and she has no way of finding out(....Cas needs a new phone. That fall killed her other one.). In theory she could run back into the fray with reckless abandon but Cas has no way to communicate her location and therefore could step on her father’s….whatever he’s doing.

Cas is also limping. She could ignore it easily(There are far worse kinds of pain but burns do suck. It’s not like her breathing’s been impacted.) but unless she has a destination there isn’t really a point.

It’s a waiting game and she flinches violently when the biggest explosion yet causes a third of the crane system to buckle and collapse. That almost does it.

Cas hates waiting and her patience is about as dried up as the Atacama desert….so it’s not going well for her.

And then the surviving suits of armor start exploding mid flight.

See….it’s clearly a command because it’s too perfect, right? The explosions are brilliant and controlled so it has to be the self destruct sequence built into all of the suits after Obadiah Stane used the wreck of the Mark I to build his clunky monstrosity. Her father is big on learning from his mistakes and so is she.

That destroys the fragile whisper of self-control that was keeping her in place and Cas starts running as fast as she’s currently capable of moving into the flaming mess they made. Honestly, why would her father trigger a wholesale self-destruct? Is it another hostage situation? Was his hand forced?

She should have fought harder to stay with Pepper.

Cas climbs over a half melted shipping container and very nearly (but she totally doesn’t) starts tearing up because her father and Pepper are right there. They’re both alive and they look okay which is a really good start. Now, Cas doesn’t mean to suggest that she values Pepper over her father but last she saw the woman Cas was being dragged away by Jarvis (who she will be talking to about taking things too literally). Meaning the first words out of her mouth as she slips down the wreckage and eases onto her bad leg is, “Pepper!” She’s happy to see them both, “Oh gods, I’m so sorry-”

“Get over here, Cassie,” Is all Pepper says in return. It’s funny because they seriously aren’t a super huggy little sort-of family….but Cas is all for this huddled affirmation of life hug thing that’s going on right now. They’re filthy and bruised and bloody but they all have pulses. That’s what matters.

“So….we won?” There’s so much input right now that Cas doesn’t know which stimulus to focus on first. Instead she’s enjoying the fact that her people, her family, are alive.

Her father answers her, “Yeah, kid, we won.” Thank the gods, “Rhodey and Piper got the President out.” Even better.

Although she doesn’t care too much about the POTUS right now. Cas possibly tightens her grip on her father and Pepper instead of responding, “Careful, Cassie, I catch fire when injured now.” Pepper says.

She laughs a little breathlessly, “That’s cool. Leo does that too but I’m guessing….”

“We’re gonna have to fix that,” Yeah, her father’s right. It’s unstable with a slight chance of going supernova at inopportune moments. Also, there are still some Extremis soldiers lying around so they’ll need to be neutralized humanely for trial and oh gods….there’s another mess that Cas will be helping to clean up. It’s the first mass arrest of Enhanced individuals so she’ll have to stare it down and keep it civil. 

…..later problem.

Whatever, it’s Christmas, “Does that mean Pepper can’t be the star for our tree?” Her father finds it at least a little bit funny either that or she’s getting pity laughs now. Pepper makes a noise that Cas will label as ‘exasperation’ but she’s just trying to deal with everything, “The suits?”

“Pepper’s Christmas present,” Her father says and okay. There are stranger things he could do for her and this one feels pretty symbolic even though the specific meaning eludes Cas at the moment. Probably something along the lines of turning his focus back onto the present and not the nebulous shadowy threat of the future. Eh, it’s from her father to Pepper so Cas doesn’t need to get it.

~~~

They get commended for saving the President. It’s supposed to be a big deal for all of them but Cas and her father have more important things to be doing. The Extremis formula is a work of art and Cas actually mourns the loss of Dr. Maya Hansen after reading through her initial research. She wanted to do so much good but she got so lost by the end. 

Back to the President, he would have publicly thanked Cas and her father too but they were busy working to fix the bug in Extremis and safely deactivating it. Instead, Rhodey and Piper received commendations directly from President Ellis and Piper McLean became the first demigod in modern history to shake the POTUS’s hand.

Go Pipes. Jason is so proud….and really angry that Cas didn’t call him in too…. Every other word out of Cas’s mouth that isn’t science related is a freaking apology to an angry demigod. Also, Chiron. Turns out that Thalia was kind of right about people wanting to help her.

Before anyone accuses Cas and her father of being greedy with Extremis, they invited Helen and Bruce in for the fun. Bruce took one look and compared it to a supersoldier serum. Then he noped the heck out of the room. That’s fine. His accident was a result of a demented attempt to recreate Captain America(His Ross is evidently the Ross that hates Cas now….let’s just say that guy’s on some thin fucking ice and if Bruce ever gives the go ahead….well, yeah.). He’s allowed to put his foot down and say no, in fact Cas is glad he feels confident enough in the Tower to do it(every day the odds of him running back the Calcutta grow slimmer).

Helen is a very different story, “This is brilliant,” Yes, it is, “It’s also so weaponizable that I wouldn’t give this to a hamster.” The time that Helen has spent with Cas has done wonders for her language skills. They come to the conclusion that there is no safe way to apply this technology to the rest of the world so there won’t be any starfish regeneration powers for the masses. That’s actually very sad in Cas’s eyes especially once she learned about what the Vice President did and why. Knowing her own father….she kind of wonders where the line is drawn in what a parent would/should do for their children.

Then there’s another problem that Cas found. She gets a spare moment with her father and Rhodey and Cas makes the mistake of drifting in front of them.

“Kid?” Cas looks up her father, “I see the thinking face. What’s eating you?” She crosses her arms and looks between her father and Rhodey.

“I was wondering if you and Rhodey would go through the profiles of the surviving Extremis soldiers with me,” She swallows and prepares for backlash, “Mostly to see if any of them….If maybe we could try to get some of their sentences commuted.”

Her father stares at her but Rhodey jumps on that one immediately, “You can’t be serious. Cassie, these guys were just trying to kill you and Tony.”

It’s all very true but, “Killian took advantage of them.” They were all disabled veterans with almost no support systems. No one is looking for them….like the demigods who fought for Kronos. The gods ostracized(a real ostracism) some of them after the titanomachy but others joined or in some cases returned to Camp Half-Blood. They’re good and many are in school or working. They just needed help after feeling abandoned by Olympus.

“No,” Yes, Rhodey, “They’re adults, Cassandra, and they made their choices.”

“They are all honorably discharged disabled veterans,” Rhodey winces and this has to be a heavy topic for him, “That has to mean something for at least some of their cases. They were hurt protecting this country and got their monthly disability check but somewhere along the line that wasn’t enough and gave Killian a way to slip in.” It’s not right. This is the kind of environment that allowed Kronos to grow his army under Olympus’s nose. 

It’s like the crowded Cabin 11 Cas used to sleep in. All of those demigods chose the titans because Kronos promised better than what Olympus offered.

Chad Davis must have been so messed up from his tour of service if the people really believed he committed suicide. This is a huge problem to fix now that she’s looking at it but they can start with the Extremis soldiers in front of them and move on from there.

Rhodey rubs his hand over his scalp, “I see where you’re coming from but even if we helped them there’s no way….Cas, regardless they aren’t keeping their disabled veteran benefits with a rap sheet like this and they aren’t keeping Extremis either.” Duh, “We’re talking about treason, not just them working for a mad man.”

“But what if….,” Risky territory. Risky risky territory. All of these people are risks but they also have to know their current situations and prospects.

“Cas, they’re not demigods,” Her father says and Cas looks up sharply. Ah, stupid dad brain seeing straight into the heart of it, “It’s not the same.”

“It’s similar enough,” She takes a deep breath and releases it, “From a purely objective standpoint, allowing the veteran system to remain as is, it’s leaving an open door for someone else to come in and use them. That’s a lot of trained military personnel with a potential grudge against America,” That’s the cold analysis, “From my point of view, some of the Extremis people had to know Killian was bad news but they lacked other options. He offered them their bodies back. He offered them power.” That’s so hard to say no to especially if it feels like their only way out. After the titanomachy, Cas met demigods who had no idea Camp Half-Blood had been an option for them. This situation persisted through to Nero because he got all those children like Meg before they reached thirteen, Percy’s mandated claiming age.

But military personnel come registered, they’re listed and in systems making them far easier to locate than unclaimed demigods, “I suppose some of the Mark XLII tech could be used in prosthesis development. We could finally take a real look at nervous system integration.” Cas grins at her father as he continues, “And I’m sure Rhodey has some military contacts that would be willing to set up a program with Stark Industries. We can open some alternative employment opportunities too.” Marshmallow Man is back. This is how the Futurist saves the world. It’s not just blowing up bad guys, “Legal can take a look at some of the Extremis guys’ files since we have them for deactivation purposes anyway.”

Rhodey looks back and forth between them, “When I told you way back before all of this,” He motions around the room, “That you weren’t living up to your potential,” He focuses on her father, “I didn’t mean you needed to fix the world.”

Her father releases a dramatic sigh, “Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta do it. May as well be me and the newer model.” Cas grins and waves at Rhodey because that’s her. Cas and her father are just getting started on changing the world.

~~~

“Excuse me!” Cas cannot see where she’s going but she very carefully dodges around hospital personnel while counting her steps and the halls she’s passing, “Sorry!” She says again as she bumps into a person in a white coat.

She’s carrying a teddy bear. It’s a big one and doesn’t quite fit through door frames unless she makes it. Which is perfectly fine. Cas has arrived at her location anyway, “Happy! Merry Christmas!”

She can hear his disgruntled, “Cas?” Followed by a concerned, “What the heck is that?”

“It’s your Christmas present,” It’s a little late but Happy was only just declared well enough for visitors and Cas has been antsy to get here. She squeezes Happy’s new bear into the sad little seat under the wall mounted television, “Dad helped pick it.” Not much of a decision though since it was between a green bow and a red one.

“Of course he did,” Happy still looks pretty beaten up but at least he’s awake, “I’m guessing Pepper wasn’t there.”

“Nah, she was busy,” Busy trying to figure out how to not set things on fire.

“Figures.” Huh?

Cas looks between the bear and Happy, “You don’t like it?” She knows he doesn’t like it. In fact she’s fully prepared to donate it and maybe twenty others to the children’s wing.

However, “No! No, I like it.” That face he made in response to Cas’s ‘sad’ eyes remind her that everyone is recovering from the absolute mess that is Aldrich Killian. Her New Year’s is shaping up to be a dull affair but the solstice celebrations are more important to her anyway.

She moves to the bed after making sure that the bear isn’t about to fall over. A normal person would ask Happy about how he’s feeling, “Move your feet. I’m sitting,” But none of them are normal.

“What do you mean move my feet?” Happy automatically starts arguing. It’s a good sign that he’ll recover, “I’m laying here in the hospital and you’re telling me to move.” She smiles as she sits on the edge of the bed.

The she sighs dramatically and makes a show of looking inconvenienced, “I wanted to find out how they’re dealing with Matthew Crawley being crippled but if you don’t want to watch then I can stream Downton Abbey at my apartment,” It’s funny how Happy lights up a little bit from just that and he carefully moves his feet over to give her more space. Cas and Jarvis decide that the tv is theirs and they take over to watch whatever episode Happy wants.

~~~

It’s been roughly a week since they stabilized Extremis(it took thirteen days and more all nighters than is strictly advisable). Pepper was the very first person to benefit from the treatment and….she remains a little bit above average in the healing department. However, she doesn’t glow and she hasn’t set anything on fire. She hasn’t displayed any enhanced speed or strength either(nothing outside of what a normal human should be capable of anyway but Pepper says she’s stronger than before….eh, there are worse things that could happen). The first sign that something weird is going on in hers and Helen’s lab is when her father walks in.

The second is when he says, “Jarvis, secure the room.” Their security is top notch so that means her father has entered paranoid levels of security. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of them since he came in. Why would he- “I need your help.” What? Her father squares his shoulders in a way that says ‘yep, you heard me.’ That she did.

“With what, old man?” It would be best if she tries to appear unaffected.

He taps the Arc Reactor and she just realized that it’s in the open, “This.” That is not very helpful, “I want it removed.” What?

That’s a little bit, “Tony, you’re missing most of your sternum and parts of your ribs. Not to mention your muscles, especially the intercostals that are damaged or completely gone to accommodate the reactor.” Helen hits the nail on the head right there. She didn’t even mention the scarring to his pleural cavity that must be present. Frankly, it’s a miracle that her father’s alive.

Her father just looks between them like they’re the stupid ones, “We just finished Extremis. Did you forget about that?” Um…..

“I thought we agreed that it was a little too….” How should Cas put this? Ah yes, “Explosive.”

“We only need it to regenerate tissue in a select area of my body,” Oh, is that all, “And for the tissue to remain viable after Extremis is diluted or preferably deactivated.” Cas just sighs in response. It sounds like an impossible task but Cas has learned to spit on the word.

Convincing Dr. Wu, the world’s leading cardiac surgeon, to fly out and perform the procedure on her father is arduous. Convincing him to do it after signing an NDA and forbidding him from doing a case study is an odyssey in and of itself. 

The day of the surgery, Cas stands with Pepper before her father is escorted to the prep room, “Are you sure we can’t make you just a little bit more durable?” It took ages for his black eye to heal after defeating Killian. If they’re going to keep getting into these fights (and they will because her father is just as much of a danger magnet as a demigod) then she wouldn’t mind her father being just a hair less fragile.

“Don’t you dare make me like Captain America,” Fair enough, “And I think this whole adventure has proven that I don’t really need an upgrade.” Also very true. Rather than respond Cas hugs her father before leaving him in the hands of the doctors and anesthesiologists. 

Rhodey and Pepper join Cas in the observation room quietly. She appreciates that neither of them say anything along the lines of ‘he’ll be fine’ or ‘don’t worry.” This is risky even with the use of Extremis to seal his chest cavity. Instead Rhodey squeezes Cas’s shoulder and Pepper takes her hand while her father is set up on that terrifying looking surgical table. It’s heart surgery so she understands the purpose of spreading his arms like that but it’s disquieting. 

As if this wasn’t difficult enough to watch, her father makes the effort to reassure them before he’s put under by giving his audience a thumbs up. Then he’s out for three and a half hours as Dr. Wu painstakingly removes every sliver of shrapnel that’s been sitting in her father’s chest since she knew him. She wonders if it will be weird to not be able to notice him just by the arc reactor being in her vicinity(not that she minds). 

There’s a lot of shrapnel….Cas saw the pre surgery chest x-rays but there’s still more metal than she was expecting there to be. 

There had been concerns before the procedure about whether or not the Extremis would burn off the anaesthesia. They ran simulations through Jarvis and adjusted dosages as best as they could but Cas still holds her breath when the doctor brings the syringe to the port. Her father must have earned a free miracle or something because when the glowing starts he doesn’t wake up. 

It goes off without a hitch.

It’s really nice when the Fates decide to give them a break.

~~~

“You’re sure that they’re intact,” Cas had been skeptical when her father asked her to come out to the ruins of his Malibu home with him but now she’s fretting over U and DUM-E as she straps them into the trailer. Her father’s car looks odd with a trailer hitched to the back of it but it’s not like they’re going to rent a Uhaul. 

“I built those two to last,” Her father runs his eyes over her handy work in securing everything worth salvaging from the house, “Get over here. I have something to show you,” Cas pops her head out of where she’s tightening a knot. He’s leaning against their haul casually but when she approaches he pulls a small object out of his pocket and tosses it at her.

Cas examines the small box in her hand and the realization on her face must be comical. She looks up at her father to get his okay before opening the velvet ring box. It can’t be anything else. After her father nods, Cas carefully opens it and, “Whoa.”

“That was your grandmother's,” He says while Cas examines this new development, “My dad had it made for her. Might need some resizing but what do you think?”

Ha. What does she think? “You’re going to propose to Pepper?” Cas looks up grinning so widely it actually hurts a little bit. Honestly, she can’t think of anything better to come out of this Mandarin business.

Her father shrugs before crossing his arms, “Not yet,” What? Why not? Pepper is the center of their family. There’s a reason that Cas calls her the Queen, “I still have some grovelling to do after….” He trails off and looks pointedly at what's left of the house.

That’s stupid, “She already forgave you.” So has Cas. That’s all over with now so there’s no point in sitting on it.

“I haven’t forgiven me though,” That kills any sort of argument Cas could come up with, “For now I have this instead,” Her father gently tugs a necklace out of the inside pocket of his jacket and holds up for Cas to examine. It’s beautiful and the focus is a heart shaped red stone (Cas doesn’t know enough about jewelry making to identify it on sight...it’s probably expensive) but there’s something about the chain that catches her eye.

The piece is obviously custom but compared how clean the set of the gemstones are the chain looks almost ragged in comparison. Then she identifies it, “Are those-”

“Yep,” Her father had the shrapnel from his heart made into a necklace for Pepper. Okay, Cas is not a romantic but she knows symbolism and promises. Her father is such a softie marshmallow for his family, “Thought about giving you one,” Eh, no thanks, “But that’s not very you.” No, no it isn’t, “I have something else for you.”

Huh? Christmas presents have been put on a mental back burner for her and she’ll get around to distributing the rest of them eventually but, “I don’t need anything else, old man.” She has everything and anything she could ever need.

He places the necklace back in his jacket pocket and accepts the ring back from Cas, “I have a promise for you instead,” That’s a new one, “Call it…” He quirks a small smile like he’s just been very clever, “Call it a New Years resolution.” It’s a little late into the new year but whatever.

“I’ll bite,” She takes the spot next to him against the car and he automatically drops an arm around her, “What is it?”

“This isn’t going to happen again,” Well, she hopes not. Cas would rather no more homes are destroyed via missile strike for the rest of their existence, “I’m not going to let myself get bad like this again,” Oh, “And I’m going to do better.”

Cas is fully aware that she is a biased party…..but she has the best dad, “Whatever you say, old man. I have your back.”

She’s squeezed just a little tighter, “You too, kiddo.” Then the moment’s over, “Get in the car. We’re going for a drive and then we’re doing story time.” He turns and opens the driver’s side door.

That’s abrupt, “Story time?” 

“Uh-huh,” That’s not really her father’s forte usually, “I want to hear about how you got to Rome,” Ah….what? “And I’m prepared to pay with how I got out of the cave.” Damn.

Well and truly the best dad anyone could ask for...assuming that one can keep up with him anyway. Cas makes her way around the car, “I think we deserve donuts for this one.” And caffeine for the headache that she’ll have after.

“Donuts it is,” Her father is in perfect agreement with her as he pulls away. They’re pretty far from the nearest good bakery donuts but they’ve got a lot of stuff to talk about….it doesn’t feel as intimidating as it could be.

~~~

“I bet you’re wondering why I gathered you all here today,” Cas says to the three brilliant men sitting around the table in the completed(again) Stark Tower…..there’s an ‘A’ where Stark used to be but Avenger’s Tower hasn’t caught on yet. With demigods on the case, it probably never will but that’s not important. No, what’s important is that Cas has managed to get her father, Rhodey, and Bruce all in the same room.

“You said it was urgent,” Rhodey doesn’t look like he’s in the mood to mess around to today which is unfortunate because Cas is about to ruin his foreseeable future.

“And it is,” Cas takes a sip of her coffee first as she steels herself, “Dad already saw this coming, I think.” She’s been wondering (procrastinating) about the best way to do this but Piper cornered her in her apartment the other day about whether or not Cas shared the knowledge Zeus gifted to her. Cas now has a deadline of today because Piper, “Remember how I had to go answer to Olympus after the Chitauri?”

Bruce’s eyes widened a little bit because she never told him that but Rhodey’s in the know, “Cas…” Yeah, she’s going to be in a bit of trouble after this.

Probably a lot by the crossed arms and blank look she’s getting from her father right now. However, having Bruce in the room was an excellent idea because he’s a buffer. Her father won’t get mad at her in front of someone who isn’t family (they like Bruce but he’s not quite there yet). This is called plotting and she’s good at it, “You said you were ‘chastised over the definition of a long time.’”

“Which is true,” But she also didn’t state everything, “I was also rewarded along with the others for our efforts to protect Olympus...with information that I withheld because it’s technically unverifiable but I’m working on that.” Bruce is being quiet which is expected but his eyes are darting between the other people in the room. Rhodey sighs out something along the lines of ‘damn Starks’ and she should probably feel insulted.

Her father is another story entirely. He lets out a slow controlled breath and she wonders if he’s taken up any of Chiron’s breathing exercises, “Cas, what exactly did they tell you?”

He doesn’t look or sound angry. He does sound restrained though and Rhodey is not helping with the way he’s staring Cas down. She’s so grateful that she did this while Pepper was busy elsewhere, “I was told that the Chitauri were after a second object like the Tesseract but not what or where it is on Earth,” It’s possible that the gods don’t know, “Also, their commander/master/leader will likely come themselves eventually but it was implied that we have time for that one,” There’s silence, “For the record, since the gods said we have time we could be talking literal decades here.” It took sixty years for Percy’s chosen one prophecy to come true.

Bruce quietly says, “They’re coming back?” Cas nods and takes another sip of her coffee while that information sinks into her father’s and Rhodey’s heads.

“So nothing’s changed,” Her father finally says. Did she call her father’s suspicions or what?

Rhodey looks at them sharply and Cas cringes just a little because she thought that Rhodey would have been in the loop of her father’s thoughts already, “Wait, wait, wait. Back up,” Yeah, she’s in trouble, “You knew about this since May,” That she did, “And have said nothing.”

“False,” Cas says and quickly adds, “We - meaning me and the others - did try to suggest that there’s impending attack and were swiftly shot down by the men in uniform,” Rhodey doesn’t look very surprised at that since he remembers all of the shit Cas dealt with initially, “I made the call that we needed to authenticate our information before soapboxing Armageddon.”

“And I was left out of this because….” Her father says casually expecting an answer that Cas doesn’t want to give.

“You should know that Pipes has already demolished my original reasons for not telling you,” Cas leads with that because it shows that she knows she was wrong, “But it was mainly because I thought you were busy enough…” Oh, there’s the sharpening of his stare, “And I delayed telling you because technically speaking I’m not in danger yet and we have time.” Busy is code for coming to terms with all of the shit he’s survived.

The look her father gives her tells Cas that they will be discussing the definition of ‘in danger’ later but for now, “I’m assuming that Team Science is your attempt to prove there’s a space threat.”

She nods, “I also told Shield to fu-fluff off,” Swearing is unprofessional and detracts from the strength of an argument according to Pepper. Cas knows that but she usually doesn’t care, “Because I think they’d try to blow up Mars or something like that. Jane thinks she’s able to detect anomalies consistent with the Asgardian teleportation technology which is a starting point. Also, since you were designing all of those Iron Man suits I didn’t think our offense was an issue.” Cas is just throwing stuff out there in hopes of spreading brain power away from being frustrated with her.

Her father sighs, “And then I blew them up,” Cas doesn’t like that look on her father’s face.

“That’s fine. It gave me an idea anyway,” Cas wonders how this one is going to go over, “How many people would you actually trust to pilot them anyway?” Having forty two (technically it was never that many as the Mark I and II were very retired) suits of flying armor would be nice but they’d need pilots. There is a distinct lack of qualified individuals especially if they’re all so unique.

“Other than Rhodey and myself?” Cas nods, “You and Pepper.” Which is what Cas thought the answer was but it is still really nice to hear out loud, “Happy’s not really made for it,” Nah, he’s great as he is though.

“Thanks,” However, “But I think Jarvis was pretty awesome.” He did a fantastic job putting down the Extremis soldiers on the pier even if he failed to separate Pepper from the other targets. There was a lot going on and Jarvis manages massive amounts of data at a time. Even he has limits.

_ “Thank you,” _ Jarvis butts into their conversation,  _ “However, I must admit that piloting multiple armors of unique capabilities was very taxing on my processing power.” _ Oh no, the complicated and original variations of the suits made it difficult to pilot almost three dozen at once. What a slacker. If the sarcasm wasn’t apparent then assume it’s there.

“You are not weaponizing a platoon of suits for Jarvis,” Rhodey’s been watching too many syfy movies.

Her father stands up for his kids though, “That’s not what she’s suggesting. Right?” Cas nods at her father’s pointed question, “Cas wants to be able to close Earth’s front door. Then it needs a doorman.”

Not exactly what she meant but that has promise. She was more interested in giving Jarvis more leeway.

“Would Jarvis be capable of managing a system that complicated?” Bruce reenters the conversation now that the tempers are definitely put away, “If you're suggesting a global network to lockout future invaders then the surface area alone would be difficult to cover. That doesn’t even factor in the nuances of separating threats from friendly visitors.” It’s a lot of intelligence and (dare she say it) soul that would go into something like that. Cas can’t think of any humans that could do it perfectly.

Her father doesn’t seem fazed, “His servers would need an unprecedented upgrade but I’d have to remove him from all Stark properties,” Cas wrinkles her nose at that. Not only would Jarvis need every inch of his available power he has for such a job but he’d also need to be separated from them for the world’s piece of mind. No thank you, “It would be better to develop a new system for a global initiative like this.

It would have to be the ultimate learning system and an entirely unbiased third party, “That’s not happening. It’s Jarvis. I just wanted to give him some non-weaponized or at least non-lethal physical presences,” She focuses on Rhodey, “Identical pre programmed drones to be back up for you and dad,” She makes an encompassing gesture, “We already know he’s good at crowd control.”

Rhodey snorts and mutters a quiet, “Is that all?” As if this is some great leap from what she was doing before. She’s asking for help.

“A system like this would require hundreds...thousands of redundancies to prevent any of the obvious calamities,” Gees Bruce, someone needs to read more Isaac Asimov and watch less James Cameron.

Cas crosses her arms completely unconcerned with this, “Well it’s a good thing that my father is the leading expert on all things AI.” DUM-E and U have settled into the Tower very nicely. They’ve never shown any homicidal tendencies and neither has Jarvis who is probably capable of passing the Turing test at this point.

“I’m flattered to be volunteered for this,” There’s a collective eyebrow raised towards her father for that statement. If Jarvis had a face he’d be doing it too because of course he’s getting involved. Cas didn’t have to volunteer him, no, she just had to tell him.

Which is exactly why she didn’t want to originally.

Whatever. Spilt milk and crying….

Rhodey’s hesitant but this kind of work will take years. Opinions change.

But thus another science team was born.

~~~

Cas has been looking forward to this for weeks, “What kind of a name is Keener?” Her father gave her a look but didn’t answer her question.

Turns out that it’s the name of a supremely ethusiastic but utterly unimpressed with her father, eleven year old.

And Cas wants to keep him.

“Can you go up Mt. Olympus?”

“Yes.”

“You can fly Pegasus?”

“I can fly a pegasus. Lower case ‘p,’ our stables have the descendents of the original Pegasus.”

“Woah….” They’ve been doing this for a while now, “Can I hold your spear?”

“No,” Cas won’t give an untrained child her spear. In fact she won’t even summon it. Then he tries to hit her with an impressive pair of sad eyes, “What are you doing?”

“It worked on your dad,” Sure, kid.

“No, it didn’t,” Because he would never fall for something like that.

Her father initially only wanted to thank Harley by providing him with a child safe Bunker 9 in his garage which would cover his debt but is nowhere near capable of covering Cas’s. Her father disagrees but she knocks on the door of their home one evening and nearly gives his mother a heart attack. Evidently, Harley did not tell his mother that Iron Man crashed near the town and took shelter in the garage.

It’s a good thing that her father wasn’t there for this because Mrs. Keener clearly loves her son very much. So, even though her children are fans of Cas (and the little girl had a pegasus shirt) the protective mother did yell at Cas. Apparently the errand Cas sent Harley on wasn’t so safe after all....oops? The kid was fine though.

After she calms down, Mrs. Keener is more willing to hear Cas out but not before she slapped Cas across the face.

Fair enough.

Still this is very important to her because she owes Harley big time. Honestly, Cas hasn’t done something like this since….wow, since she thanked Percy for saving Annabeth from Atlas and Luke. Anyway, Cas takes a symbolic knee in front of Harley and puts a hand on his shoulder, “If you ever need anything ever you can call me. I don’t care if it’s gelato from Naples. You can ask me and I will be there,” Because he helped her father when Cas wasn't able to. Because he apparently saved her father’s life when she wasn’t able too.

And that’s the end of that for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think one of my biggest criticisms of the later MCU is how isolated Tony comes across as. Cap has Natasha and Sam in CA:WS which is fine but IM3 was Tony with a malfunctioning suit while Rhodey was off doing his War Machine thing. In the Dark World, Thor has Loki and Jane to help him out.
> 
> What I'm saying is that the Iron Fam needed more screen time and plot relevance. I think Rhodey was my favorite part of Endgame(but I still refuse to watch that movie ever again). Now, the addition of a child to a person's life doesn't fix them but in the case of Tony Stark I think it makes him try.
> 
> Honestly, in my head after the events of the Child of Nike (once Pepper and Rhodey finished chewing him out of the palladium thing), I think Tony looked at them and said 'help, I have a kid. what do I do?' And that fundamentally altered the dynamic of group relationship. It's a more subtle ripple from Cas's addition to the story but it's an important one.
> 
> The ripples are going to become more readily apparent down the line because I wanted to preserve the MCU story to a certain point.
> 
> The divergence is coming.


	22. Hello Physics, Meet Metaphysics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said, I am using The Dark World for world building purposes.
> 
> For the record, the Minoans were a very strange and mysterious society that worshipped a snake goddess of unknown name. They were rare in that their religion is centered around mostly female deities. They did have a strange obsession with bulls and labyrinths which is the likely origin of Theseus, Ariadne, the Minotaur, and Minos.
> 
> Also, if you look up their listed god names you may see some familiar looking words. However, this confuses me because I thought that the Minoan language was never translated but hey I'm no expert. I'm just a kid addicted to smithsonian and Nat Geo. 
> 
> FINAL IMPORTANT NOTE: I am working and I am going back to school so my available time to write is going to be dropping. After the Dark World arc I will need to drop to one chapter a week for a while. Mostly so that I can bank a few chapters for you guys. I only have two more done ahead of this one. 
> 
> BUT ENJOY AND ONWARD TO THE STORY!!!!

Cas had been having a grand old time. Her family moved back to New York which is just awesome but it became even better when Rhodey got leave. He can get called back to base if there’s an emergency or something but at this point she expects that they have a little bit of peace.

Maybe? Please?

The simulacrum for the tissue regeneration project works but sadly it’s unique to tissue types so it won’t be one stop organ regeneration yet. Maybe one day and it will probably be the skin first followed by the liver. Either way, Cas has taken the lead on building a prototype to apply and guide the healing process. It’s going to take a while but engineering is more her forte than Helen’s.

Cas and her father designed (with Rhodey watching their every move….no trust….) a few prototype drones for Jarvis to control. They’re made to be entirely defensive for getting people out of the way and helping with search and rescue. It’s going to be so awesome when they’re ready to go out, of course they’ll need to get permission to use them if/when something bad happens somewhere. It really shouldn’t be a problem at least in the United States. Her father already does that or did. They haven’t built a Mark XLIII yet but they’ve started the basics of what her father wants to accomplish with it. And they fixed War Machine.

Prosthetics are more her father’s speed at the moment and Cas is so willing to jump in on that one. Her father also has an idea for external braces to compensate for nerve and joint damage. They gave a prototype to a pianist who had lost the use of his right hand and let’s just say the pianist was in tears. [True Story: Joao Carlos Martins lost full use of his hands after a mugging in 1995. In 2020, Ubiratan Bizzaro invented a pair of bionic gloves allowing Mr. Martins to play for the first time in twenty five years. You can watch him play on YouTube.] Needless to say, they still require a lot of work before they’ll be ready for any kind of public widespread use.

Pretty much, Cas is back to science and business land with more emphasis on the science.

The main projects can actually be broken down rather easily:

Her father, Rhodey, and Cas are working on Iron Man, War Machine, and….the Iron Legion(she hates the name because she is Greek not Roman….).

Her father, Bruce, and loosely Cas are working on a Hulk redundancy to give Bruce some peace of mind and an AI based planetary defense system designated ULTRON(that name she does like because it’s going to be the ultimate automaton).

Cas, Helen, and loosely Bruce are working on tissue regeneration and accelerated healing under project name: CRADLE. It’s like the Cradle of Life which unsurprisingly brought about a beautiful round of Tomb Raider jokes. The second movie does reference Alexander the Great and Cas prefers to have her hair braided back out of the way. It took two weeks for her father to stop calling her Lara.

She got her passport back in March though. That had a party that lasted the better part of a weekend for good reason.

_ Supreme Court Rules ‘Half-Olympians’ Have Equal Rights to Baseline Humans. _

It’s nuanced and imperfect. The word demigod makes some bible thumpers a little uncomfortable while half-blood made other groups unhappy. This is a fair official compromise but as far as she’s concerned they’re demigods. Cas was a little disappointed because this ruling literally only protects their specific group of enhanced individuals meaning people like the good Captain aren’t protected by it. Bruce isn’t covered by it either but her father said that if push came to shove it would be fine. Also, Chiron and all of the other magical beings are out in the cold however it’s a start and they can gain more ground from there.

Change takes time and the progress they’ve made in a couple of years is leaps and bounds more than Cas was expecting back in 2010.

It’s also worth mentioning that Bruce and her father are friends now. Ha.

So she’s literally doing the thing that she likes to do and wants to continue doing. It’s awesome. If only it would remain awesome….

It doesn’t. Life, predictably, fails epicly to remain awesome for Cassandra Stark.

But whatever. It’s to be expected at this point.

Her relaxed evening in the tower is ruined by a centaur. Her mentor, the amazing Chiron, calls and ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, “What do you mean dimensional distortion?” But Cas has no idea what the old horse is talking about.

_ “I’m afraid the last occurrence predates even my birth,” _ Huh, may as well be the dinosaurs then.

She rubs her temples with her fingers before responding, “That’s fantastic. So you have no idea what’s going to happen?” Why tell her that it’s coming if he has no idea what it means?

_ “That’s not entirely true,” _ Chiron says with unflappable patience,  _ “I know that while these worlds are in alignment with one another certain fundamental laws of physics will be altered or even suspended.”  _ Oh….is that all?

Gods, this is like the first Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movie. Why Tomb Raider? Cas wants Star Trek(she loves Star Wars but that is a violent and dystopian galaxy which she’d rather observe through a camera lens).

Right then, if this is a naturally occurring event that has happened before without destroying the Earth then Cas has no reason to worry about it. In fact, “Is there a pertinent reason for me to know about this?” It’s nice to have a warning but if this is going to ruin her May the Fourth there will be a reckoning.

There’s a round of silence where Cas can feel Chiron thinking,  _ “Given your father’s experience with wormholes,” _ Son of a bitch…,  _ “I thought you might want to take precautions.” _ Like what? Hey old man, let’s inexplicably take off for a couple of days(weeks?) to one of your many global properties. Or maybe we can check in on some of the demigod safehouses that have been popping up.

Yeah, that’ll go over so well assuming that they end up somewhere that’s unaffected by this ‘convergence.’

“Please,” For the love of Olympus, please, “Tell me that there’s a focal point and a minimum safe distance.” If there’s about to be a whole bunch of temporary disturbances to the laws of physics that Chiron thinks may alarm her father then she would greatly appreciate some help avoiding them.

_ “The gods have no intention of allowing mortals to accidentally stumble into Olympus,” _ Good to hear,  _ “So New York should be stable by comparison to other cities.”  _ Very good to hear. Then Cas just needs to keep her father in the city for a while.

The gods would never stand for a disturbance in their own city….she can’t even think that with a straight face, “Why is this even happening now?” Kronos, Gaea, zombies, aliens (that will be back), and now several planets (realms...whatever) with an energy connection most likely due to prolonged exposure to the Bifrost are coming into alignment. Is there some weird requirement for an annual crazy syfy fantasy experience?

This totally happened in Tomb Raider. Watch there be some mystical artifact that can control time and grant the bearer whatever they want,  _ “The last convergence took place sometime around 3000 BCE. This just happens to be it’s cycle.” _ Right, because things like this are totally coincidental.

However, “5000 years ago? Gods Chiron, that’s from before...like before before.” All of the way before. The Trojan War was around 1250 BCE for reference. 

3000 BCE is the start. That’s when,  _ “Yes, this does line up with when Olympus began to consolidate power.”  _ No fucking shit,  _ “But there’s no reason to believe that it will affect the gods now.” _

“Chiron….” The Minoan Civilization can be clocked as starting around 3000 BCE and that’s the first real society in the Greek peninsula. Yeah, that Minoan civilization. The one that King Minos and Daedalus and the Minotaur and the Labyrinth all originate from. The mortal historical record doesn’t quite show that but it all started there. The Minoan gods are the echo her gods originate from. Heracles and Jason are all from way back before the Trojan War too. Percy’s Riptide was made back then as well which makes Cas’s spear sound like a cheap replica. Her weapon is from circa 480 BCE. Greece and Olympus are hecking old but the kind of Greek that everyone thinks about mostly is the classical period around 500 BCE to 30 CE. That’s a tiny portion of the whole. But this is a history lesson tangent brought on by the fact that Cas knows coincidences don’t actually exist, “That’s a horrible sentence to say to a demigod.”

The gods were more abstract and like smoke spread out across other cultures until the Olympians settled in Greece. It’s why aspects of some gods can be equated to others; a good example is Aphrodite and Ishtar. Aphrodite is both but she’s more Aphrodite than Ishtar.

Cas ends up convincing her father and Pepper that New York is a great place to spend spring and early summer. The Convergence should have come and gone by then. They also have the Oracle Cloud monitoring for anything that would make Isaac Newton cry. The moment that it confirms any kind of spatial disturbance they’ll ground every flight that they can or divert them. Last thing that they need is some airliner flying through a wormhole to another planet.

….that happened in Dr. Who once only it was a bus. 

Gods, how is this her life?

~~~

It’s not that Cas wouldn’t help people in need if they asked. It’s that she doesn’t want to be asked in the first place, not in the sense that they should take their issues elsewhere but that she doesn’t want there to be a problem at all. This is, of course, an entirely unrealistic wish given the position that Cas intentionally put herself in but it costs her exactly nothing to dream.

There are people who are willing to help Cas mitigate some of the strain on herself like her absolutely amazing sister. After Dr. Selvig started to get some strange readings outside of Wiltshire, England, Cas had been conflicted about whether or not she should go herself. Queue Annabeth muscling her way onto a jet and flying off to the United Kingdom because, “Stonehenge is a historical monument that’s lasted 5000 years,” Cas is starting to hate that number, “Yes, I’m going to see it and I’m going to figure out how it connects to the Convergence and the Bifrost.”

...yeah.

Cas is still unsure about this and so is Percy (who doesn’t go to a demigod run university and cannot skip out on classes due to potentially mystical problems). Actually, many demigods are conflicted about the idea of the Convergence. Is it more science? Or is it more magical? Do complications and dangers from it fall into their sphere of influence?

It’s something to consider.

So let’s just say Cas had been getting helpful updates from Annabeth and Dr. Selvig for the last few days and some questionable ones from Darcy (“We got Jane to go on a date, finally. She’s been crying over Thor for like two years.”).

Then she gets an actual panicked phone call from Darcy while she was trying to have lunch at a normal time. It’s not very helpful at first,  _ “Jane disappeared!” _ If there’s a sound in the English language that literally means ‘?’ then Cas is making it right now.

“What?” Cas says because she doesn’t know where to go from that.

_ “She’s been missing for over an hour and Annabeth is looking for her,” _ At least someone with missing persons experience is there,  _ “But she said that the readings look like Jane’s data on the New York portal,” _ Oh gods,  _ “Should I call the cops? Can you get here too? Some more superheroes would be great right now.” _ There’s a lot of information to go through right there.

“Okay Darcy, take a breath. Homo sapiens need oxygen,” Cas takes a breath herself before plunging in, “I am in New York and I’m not about to fly a team of demigods to England out of nowhere,” There’s so many reasons why that wouldn’t go over well. Legal and PR would murder her and then resurect her so that Pepper can stare her down, “Yes,” A thousand times, yes, “Call the police. If there’s a gravitational anomaly that people can fall through then they need to rope off wherever you are.” There’s a pause where Darcy must be thinking but, “Well?” She’s a little frustrated because the satellite over Europe did not pick up anything or maybe….wait there it is. Jarvis just pulled it up in front of her….Joy.

Her father is going to love this. That may or may not be sarcastic.

Then Darcy says in an unusually small voice, _ “....we’re trespassing.”  _ Is that all she’s worried about?

Honestly, if Cas got caught everytime she went somewhere she shouldn’t be then she’d either be in prison or owe a whole lot of money in legal fines, “That’s an old past time. Welcome to the hero business,” Ugh, looks like she’s fully embraced that one, “You work for me technically so I’ll cover for you if anyone gets snippy.” Cas is more concerned about their safety. Annabeth didn’t call her right away so she’s not worried yet. Still….

**Me:** _Dimensional spelunking? And you didn’t invite me?_

**Star-Girl:** _ It’s barely been an hour _

_ I can handle it _

**Me:** _ Never doubted _

_ But the word vomiting Darcy wasn’t on the docket for today _

Darcy still isn’t sold,  _ “Jane and Erik don’t want Shield to come in.” _ Dr. Selvig is not a fan of Shield and neither is Jane. She may have made it worse intentionally but it’s not like Shield made it difficult for Cas to expand that chasm.

So Cas totally gets where Darcy is coming from but it’s possible that she’s more concerned over Jane’s potential anger than Jane’s current unknown status, “If they do then they can bumble around like dumbasses. We know what’s up. Call the cops and don’t fall through any gaps in the fabric of reality.” Not a sentence that Cas ever thought she would use.

_ “But you’re coming too, right?” _ Dammit Darcy,  _ “I’m just the intern. I shouldn’t have to do this.” _

“Sure you are, Lewis,” Just an intern...Whatever, “If Annabeth says you guys need backup then I’ll be on the next jet out of the Tower.” It is convenient that they have a landing pad and Cas can fly a Quinjet now. She’ll probably let Jarvis pilot while she tries to get permissions from UK immigrations to run around as she pleases. Since it’s an employee of Stark Industries that fell off the face of the Earth, she should be able to push the business interests especially since they’re supposed to be breaking ground on the new tower soon. 

Maybe she can check in on the Stark International tower progress directly while she’s there. Assuming that she goes, nothing is set in stone yet. Cas is just determining the best way to get there as fast as she can should it become necessary.

For now, she will selectively ignore this situation while having Jarvis passively monitor the proceedings. Jane is a smart and resourceful human and Annabeth is on the case.

It’ll be fine.

Maybe she won’t even need to go.

~~~

There are moments in a demigod’s life where all they want to do is stare up at the sky and scream their heads off. Most of them don’t actually do this because it’s a great way to get institutionalized but Cas really….really wants to right now.

The hour immediately following her phone call with Darcy found Cas shepherded to the secure levels of the Tower. It’s fine. She’s relaxing and getting her work done while acting like the increasingly disconcerting readings Jarvis is picking up over western Europe are expected. In actuality, Cas has no idea if they’re expected or not.

The instruments at her disposal didn’t exist 5000 years ago so there’s no way to know. It doesn’t change the fact that as long as Cas stays mellow the majority of her family will follow suit. That means she’s watching Netflix and enjoying Vine. Oh gods, does Cas love Vine. The demigods love Vine.‘Look at all those chickens’ has a remake involving a gutsy Hermes camper taunting the Ares cabin. It’s….the metaphorical picture has been painted.

Anyway, everyone is more or less going about their business as usual. Her father doesn’t even seem all that concerned about it. That probably has something to do with the fact that he knew the Convergence was coming and they had time to prepare at least a little bit. Evidently, her father’s not a fan of surprises either.

“Cassandra!” Then Lester Papadopoulos(a.k.a. Apollo the sun dude) broke their ‘perimeter’ as Happy called it. He’s out of the hospital but on an extended vacation for his recovery which hasn’t stopped him from working. He probably doesn’t know what vacation means.

Cas would like to say that she was surprised when she locked eyes on Apollo and his sunny grin out on the tiered balcony. Honestly, she’s been waiting for something to happen and this is it. She stands with a brief, “Lord Apollo,” And Cas feels a smidge bad when some of the smile on Apollo’s face dies. Jarvis remarks in her ear that her father is on the way which is just perfect.

Hopefully Sunshine Senior will forgive her for the formality, “After everything, Cas? I thought we were friends now.” Ha. Ha. Ha. Apollo has grown on her and he learned a lot about humility during his time as a mortal. Friend might be a strong word for how she views him but Cas does respect Apollo for how he defeated Nero and Python.

“Are you here as a friend?” Because usually when he visits the demigods for the sake of visiting he appears as Lester not adult Apollo.

Apollo sighs so Cas knows she’s correct, “Unfortunately not, which is too bad. I wanted to take Meg and her foster siblings out but something’s happened.” No….please no.

Cas shakes her head, “Please don’t.” If this is what she thinks it is….

“Olympus has a task for you, Cassandra Stark,” Boom, there it is. It’s why Cas didn’t smile when she saw Apollo or greet him as Lester. Her eyes fall shut and she grimaces but Apollo continues, “A relic from the birth of Olympus has gone missing from where it was sealed,” Cas looks up again and the god looks regretful for having to do this to her, “You need to find it and return it to us so that it can be locked away before it falls into the wrong hands."

A relic? It’s not exactly unusual but the lack of a clear name is, “What is it?” Also, “And where is it?” Actually, “Why was I asked?”

Apollo reaches behind himself and brings forward a silver pithos engraved with spell work that is so far beyond Cas’s comprehension. So much so that Cas is pretty certain Hecate herself made this thing. She doesn’t reach for it but Apollo doesn’t try to make her, “The relic is the catalyst our connection to the mortals forged with,” Well shit, “The personalities of the protogenoi and the fundamental laws that shaped our early interactions with the mortals are a result of it. It’s more dangerous than any object you’ve ever interacted with directly.” That answers the what and the ‘why her?’ because, “Don’t lie to yourself, Cas. You won’t let another demigod near this if you can help it.”

That’s very true, “Right,” Now that they’re all aware of how unavoidable all of this is, “Where is it?”

“It was in London,” Oh for the love of….what did she do in her last life to earn this? When Cas dies she wants an express ticket to the Isle of the Blessed because she deserves it, “Which is perfect for you. Isn’t Annabeth there right now?” Yep, so it looks like Cas doesn’t get a choice about letting other people in.

Cas sighs and prepares to embrace the inevitable, “So do you have a snazzy prophecy for me? Or do I need to call Rachel for that part?” Quests and prophecies and all that jazz.

“Not this time, Cas,” What? Okay fine, she’ll just make a stop in Long Island before- “This goes beyond Olympus and the scope of Delphi’s sight.” Joy. Cas once thought it was possible to retire from the heroing business and being a glorified errand girl for the gods, “This object enabled Chaos to form Nyx, Erebos, Tartarus, Gaea, and Ouranos,” Right, “So you’ll need this pithos to safely transport it.”

Gods….She’s obviously taking the pithos now. Still there’s one other thing bothering her, “How’d you end up on quest delivery duty?” Usually, it’s the parent, Hermes, or some tragic event that sends them to consult with an Oracle.

Now Apollo grins a million MegaWatt smile, “I volunteered. It was me or your mother,” In that case, Cas is supremely grateful to see the sun god. If she can go the rest of her life without speaking to her mother again that would be great. Of course, she doesn’t say or do anything to suggest that but just nods. “There’s no prophecy for you but I have come up with a haiku.” Oh.

This is probably going to be terrible, “Really? Whatcha got?”

He strikes a more serious pose before reciting:

_ Against endless fights _

_ The Daughter of Victory  _

_ Stands proud in sunlight _

Huh….that was nice of him, “Thanks, Apollo.” It’s good to hear that she has a few gods that favor her still even if she really doesn’t like that first line. She turns the pithos over in her hand and traces the writing with her finger. It’s legible and she can understand the words like ‘protection,’ ‘seal,’ and ‘unbroken,’ but it’s like asking a third grader to read and comprehend Macbeth. Sure, they can learn the words but the way they’re woven together is too complicated for them to understand.

She hears the elevator ding from across the room signalling her father’s arrival, “Good luck, Cassandra,” Apollo says before vanishing. Cas sighs but keeps her eyes fixed on the pithos in her hand.

“Kid,” Her father says and Cas feels so guilty. This is what she is and what she’s supposed to do but here her father is just doing his best, “Jarvis gave me the rundown on the way up so what’s-”

“I’m sorry,” She’s so sorry but he can’t help. Not this time. Not when it’s a task presented directly to her from the gods. Annabeth can help her because this is demigod business. She looks up at her father, “I’m really sorry but you can’t help me on this one.” A random monster attack? Sure. But the tragedy of Bianca Di Angelo still tastes bitter when Cas remembers the result of disregarding quest rules. Percy meant well but there’s still the question of whether or not Bianca would still be alive if Percy hadn’t inserted himself into a quest that wasn’t his.

Apollo said she needed to find it and mentioned Annabeth so that’s what Cas has to work with. Also, she’s not about to bring her father to London around wormholes and space time anomalies when she doesn’t know if he’s come to terms with his experiences yet.

Chiron wouldn’t have warned her about it if he didn’t think there was a potential issue, “Are you kidding me?” No dad, she isn’t, “You expect me to just let you,” Cas bristles but doesn’t interrupt her father, “Fly off to the epicenter of an planetary anomaly.”   
  
No one ‘lets’ Cas do anything. She doesn’t need anyone’s permission, “I expect you to trust me.” None of the other demigods deal with this from their mortal parents. Then again none of those parents are Iron Man. Regardless, Cas stands relaxed but firm in the face of her father’s incredulity and frustration.

“This has nothing to do with trust, Cassandra,” Welp, her full name’s been used. So that’s just great, “You’re my kid,” Which changes nothing, “I can’t stand here and watch you jump into danger.” After having the important adults in her life do that for all of her formative years, it’s a really nice thing to hear. It’s really nice that her father wants to help her.

However, Penelope sent Odysseus off to war. Thetis sent Achilles off to war. Mr. Chase doesn’t try to stop Annabeth and while he has helped he doesn’t try to insert himself into everything. Mrs. Jackson never stands in the way of Percy’s decisions. Her father only had a couple of years to get used to this though, “I’m a demigod and sometimes I fight monsters. Sometimes I have to be a courier for the gods,” What does the postal service say? ‘ Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’ Well, unfortunate planetary alignments don’t stop demigods from acting.

She doesn’t want to fight with her father on this. The last time she ran off on a god centered quest (also with Apollo involved) she didn’t tell him and she nearly died so Cas knows what’s in her father’s head right now. She also knows that her father has to let go, “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

Not really, “Maybe a little,” She sighs and turns the pithos over in her hand, “I will have Annabeth,” And the first Asgard/Earth science team once she finds them, “And I can promise that Jarvis will ping you if something happens.” Something’s going to happen.

“Something will happen,” Her father doesn’t miss a beat but she can hear the resignation especially when he sighs this time. The guilt rolls in her stomach like a stone, “Fine. Go be the hero,” Cas holds back any reaction to that too, “But if Jarvis contacts me I’m sending Rhodey to get you.” What. The. Hell.

“That is an entirely unnecessary threat,” Gods, they haven’t finished the Mark XLIII because they’ve been busy. However, threatening her with sending War Machine to cause an international incident is way too much. The worst part is Rhodey would do it and he’d still lecture her for her decisions, “But fine.” If it get’s her out the door on good terms with her father then she’ll agree to it. And do everything she can to ensure that Jarvis doesn’t send for her uncle.

“And you get to tell everyone else where you’re going.” That’s fair.

~~~

Modern technology is just the best….well, Stark Industries modern technology is the best. That’s what happens when you take the world's leading scientists and engineers and promise them that they won’t be making weapons anymore. Well, they don’t make lethal weaponry anymore. There’s still several contracts with the DOD regarding that exact thing as well as body armor to prevent situations like her father’s convoy ambush.

Anyway, the landing bay in the Tower and the Quinjet are both sleek and beautiful even if Cas still feels that they’re unnecessary. Yes, it’s a bit hypocritical given that she’s using them right now but the only reason they got zoned for this was the avalanche of support following the Chitauri attack the previous year.

“Hey Iron Man, how do we thank you for saving us from the nuke and the aliens?”

“I want a landing bay for my space age jet that none of you can have access to yet.”

The conversation was a bit more nuanced than that but it was the general feel of the situation.

The Quinjet is great, Jarvis can fly it for her, and in the (highly improbable) event that Jarvis is taken down Cas can fly it herself too. So while Javis is escorting her to London with the pithos, Cas is smoothing over her surprise trip to Europe with the necessary authorities. America may have acknowledged the demigods as full citizens but the rest of the world hasn’t said much about them or the Avengers.

It’s very fair.

The aliens attacked Earth but their forces were almost completely contained to the United States. Germany thanked the Avengers for Stuttgart but she wasn’t involved at that point. This means that England is rightfully hesitant to admit another demigod, especially on such short notice, especially when her father is Iron Man.

They do let her in and she gets permission to land on a private strip of the London City Airport….Money talks but it’s all perfect above board. She’s not looking forward to driving on the opposite side of the road but she’s smart and has above average reaction times. She’ll manage and hopefully nothing will go horrendously wrong while she meets up with Annabeth and Darcy in an industrial district.

Because why would the interesting stuff happen in the nice parts of the city?

That would be convenient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone here ever see Attack on Titan?
> 
> Cas very much falls into the Reluctant Hero category. She's not much of a glory seeker like she was when she was a child. She is instead highly pragmatic(unless emotionally stressed).
> 
> She's coming to terms with the fact that she doesn't get to stay out of the fighting if she wants to protect her peoples and family. It's just taking a while because she's stubborn.


	23. She May Have Failed Before She Started(Which Sucks)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take comfort my beloved readers for next chapter we fundamentally alter a core plot point of the entire MCU Infinity Saga(or whatever it's called).
> 
> That's pretty wild.
> 
> Mostly this entire situation will be one of "I was just here for that creepy red stuff and then this happened.'

Cas pulls up to the dilapidated warehouse complete with cracked parking lots to a scene of absolute chaos. It’s really very tempting to pretend she needed to U-turn and then just leave. There’s so much to do in London and she’s never actually been there yet so she could take another crack at a vacation. She doesn’t leave though.

Instead she parks her car near a police car and gets out while leaving the pithos behind. Cas doesn’t think that she’ll need it just yet, not when she’s still trying to figure out what she’s looking for. An object of considerable power and influence over her existence is probably very noticeable. The gods aren’t subtle so why would one of the original sources of their power be?

The scene she walks up to is also very tense looking so carrying a random pagan-looking object around is not a good look for her. It’s also wet….like monsoon levels of rainfall. Weird. There was nothing on the radar when she was flying in but the media does say it’s alway rainy in London. 

Cas is more interested in the shouting and the shattered glass, the paramedics, the Nordic runes burned into the ground, and then there’s police with guns(Don’t they only allow firearms under special circumstances in England? What happened?).

There are several CCTV cameras on the road side of the parking lot so Cas has Jarvis take what he can for her to review later. She follows the shouting to where Annabeth is trying to argue Darcy and some other dude out of handcuffs(Dr. Selvig must have kept himself out of this.). Her methods would probably have worked in New York but not here….The sad little officer with a nightstick looks ready to try and swing at Annabeth so she figures now is a time to intervene.

“Annabeth!” Cas waltzes right on through the swarm of officers like she’s supposed to be there, “Great! Did you get that perimeter set up? We don’t know how far that field’s going to expand,” Which is true but the numbers she was watching on the way over suggest it won’t grow larger than the building it’s currently in. That doesn’t mean that others can’t form nearby though.

Annabeth latches right on to the opening she’s been given, “Cassie! Thank the gods,” Ha, ha, ha…, “No! I haven’t because apparently in England catching trespassers is more important than public safety.”

Cas looks over at the officer in the plucky yellow raincoat before making an intentionally wrong inference, “Is it because of Thor?” She’s assuming that the runes are from the Bifrost and a minute nod from Annabeth says she’s right, “I get that he’s technically an illegal alien but he’s also visiting royalty. Pretty sure that gets him diplomatic immunity but that’s over my head.”

This poor blindsided englishman, “This isn’t….we received a call about a missing woman and found this lot climbing around private property.” Right….

Well then, “Did you find the missing woman?” If that’s what the man is leading with then Cas is just following.

The officer looks offended while Annabeth is looking more amused than frustrated now. British police are far less scary than American ones. She likes it. They just seem a little eager right now, “No, the woman reappeared and attacked my officers before flying off with Thor.” Huh, that’s messy.

No matter where one is in the world it’s never a good idea to attack a cop, “Dr. Foster didn’t attack anyone. That was obviously an involuntary response to being grabbed by your officers. She almost fainted right after the incident.” Incident….another quick look at Annabeth tells Cas that there’s a whole lot more to that story. It’s possible Jarvis is going to have to steal some police dash cam footage for her too.

Meh….it’s for a good cause. Okay, “On behalf of Stark Industries, I would like to apologize for my overzealous scientists,” She smiles the polite professional smile that always works for Pepper, “We detected an anomaly in the area but wanted to confirm its existence before sending in the cavalry. It’s honestly nothing that we’ve seen before so we wanted to check it out before asking you to rope it all off.” This guy doesn’t look sold, “I’ll make sure the damages to your vehicles is covered.”

That worked better, “This won’t eliminate the trespassing charges.”

Sure, “Never thought it would,” It’ll help though, “I will need those two if we’re going to monitor the situation.” She doesn’t technically need them because Dr. Selvig is somewhere and she has the Oracle Cloud but she doesn’t want Darcy to go to jail.

“Yes,” Annabeth says, “Ms. Lewis and Mr. Boothby have all sorts of important data that we need to go through.” Her sister needs some practice because her bullshit skills are getting rusty. The officer buys it though which is pretty surprising.

The other guy (“Ian,” Annabeth supplies.) and Darcy walk over to them like they’re about to be scolded. It’s kind of adorable but Cas maintains a more serious stance since there are police watching, “Let’s go, miscreants.” Sort of serious. It’s one of the many perks of being Cassandra Stark.

“Dr. Stark,” Cas waits as Ian the new kid musters the courage to talk, “I dropped the car keys into gravitational anomaly.” Annabeth covers her face but Cas won’t let this affect her either. He’s just another mortal boy and he doesn’t mean any harm.

“That’s fine,” She has her own ride and they can come back for the other car later. “I’m driving so get in,” Cas turns away from them, “And whoever’s the best navigator can have shotgun.” She already knows that’ll be Annabeth and yes, Jarvis can direct them to where it is that Dr. Selvig is staying. However, she needs to know where that is first.

This is all getting very interesting because Cas just wanted to find Annabeth so they could find a starting point to look for their missing artifact, “I’m sorry that I’m the one telling you this,” Godsdammit Annabeth, “But the energy that came out of Jane felt like an angry god and Thor took her to Asgard without explaining anything.” Shit….if Jane has her quest item(Really, what are her chances that it’s something else?) and is now on Asgard then that means….

“No….,” Cas whines into the steering wheel, “I don’t want to invent human-space diplomacy.” Because she’s going to have to find a way to negotiate the return of whatever it is Jane has before Olympus labels it as stolen by Asgard. Then Thor would be her enemy and Annabeth would be on some very shaky ground.

Annabeth briefly pats her shoulder, “Keep your eyes on the road, Cassie.” Why? Just why? What did Cas do to deserve this?

~~~

Cas is drinking tea. Apparently, Dr. Selvig doesn’t drink coffee and only has a kettle in his current lodgings. Fine. She needs to drink more to get the amount of caffeine her brain needs but that’s just in the details.

Dr. Selvig spent the last hour giving Cas a lecture on the Convergence.

“The universe rotates on a 5,000 year cycle,” Gods, she hates that number but Dr. Selvig is such a professor. He has an entire presentation set up complete with Nordic realms(Where did he learn the names? And why are they spelled like that?), “And once a cycle all the realms align. Imagine that this is our world and this is another world,” He picks up two couch pillows for the demonstration. Cas and Annabeth are following just fine but she appreciates the visuals, “Normally, they’re separate but during the alignment everything is connected, all nine realms. All nine realms are passing through each other and gravity, light, and even matter, is crashing from one world into another.” He’s smacking these pillows together and while Cas assumes it won’t really look like that exactly, she gets the point.

“If this happens to us now the results could be cataclysmic,” Yeah, people build a lot more than 30 foot mud walls and the Earth’s sentient population is significantly higher now, “My gravimetric spikes can stabilize the focal point of the Convergence. This time the alignment and all the other worlds would just pass us by.” Well, Cas is sold. This guy built a portal generator in a few days and he’s been working on this for months, “It’s beautiful. It’s simple,” Such a nerd. He fits right in, “Any questions?” And he’s such a professor. Annabeth and Cas quickly rattle off the relevant questions.

“Can you locate the focal point?” Annabeth had been hopeful that Stonehenge would be the site of interest but maybe some things have shifted in 5,000 years. The most recent occurrences have been focused in the London area.

“How many gravi-spikes do you need?” Name shortening saves time.

“Where do they need to be placed?”

“How much time do we have until the peak of the alignment?”

“How did you know all of this was coming?” Because a lot of this information was not shared with her until now. It turns out that the Tesseract ‘spoke’ to Dr. Selvig. He stood there expecting judgement for talking to the magical portal cube from two Greek demigods. Honestly, Cas is jealous because the mind control stick was too intimidating to poke at when she had the access but he got to talk with the spacebending cube.

Uncool. As far as Cas is concerned, the only cool thing about Howard Stark is that he studied the Tesseract. She wanted a turn with it too.

Dr. Selvig will be able to find the focal point soon(with Jarvis’s help sifting the available data and running statistics). He has all the ‘gravimetric spikes’ they need to protect the planet from the effects of the Convergence and Cas wants those placed as soon as possible. Annabeth and Cas share a moment of emotional agony at the knowledge that they are saving the planet again. They have at least another day before the alignment peaks and once they have the location it’s simply a matter of encircling the invisible building sized wormhole.

He takes Ian and Darcy to be his assistants because they already know their way around his setup which means Cas and Annabeth have space to talk. She pulls her phone along with the video data Jarvis compiled for her during the drive and hot damn. The angle isn’t perfect but with Annabeth present Cas is able to paint the picture of the officer attempting to detain Jane. That triggered a red, smoky, and nebulous blast which originated from Jane.

Thor in his infinite princely wisdom immediately exited to Asgard(That’s what they’re assuming anyway.).

“Apollo?” Annabeth says while switching between camera angles on Cas’s phone. The Bifrost is magnificent even through shitty camera footage. 

“Yep,” But, “I think this red stuff is my god catalyst.” Ugh….At least she’s sure now. Everything is easier to work out with confirmation.

“That’s probably a safe bet,” It’s the only thing that’s safe right now, “Is anyone else coming?”

Cas very carefully does not look at Annabeth, “Nope. The gods gave me this quest and who am I to deny them or the Fates for putting you in my path.”

Annabeth gives that a few seconds to sink in, “Clar is going to kick your ass again.” That she is.

“Because flying a team of enhanced individuals to interfere in a situation in a foreign country is such a good idea.” Honestly, they all know this.

“Yeah, but you didn’t tell her,” Annabeth needs to stop hitting Cas where it hurts. She takes her phone back and fires off a text to her people in the states about her current location. Then she turns off the notifications for that particular chat group because she doesn’t want to hear it, “It’s a little late now.” Eh, better late than never. Annabeth shifts her attention to the pithos on the coffee table(If the owner only drinks tea at his home is it a tea table?) in front of them, “Have you opened it?”

That sounds terrible, “Do I look like Pandora to you?” Of course, she hasn’t opened it, “I’m not opening that lid until I find what I came for.” They both fall into an impatient silence….it’s really frustrating because if Cas had arrived just a handful of hours sooner she would be done by now. 

“I’m actually really mad at Thor,” Annabeth finally says over her own tea cup, “He didn’t even talk to me about the blast. He just took Jane and left,” Harsh.

Cas shrugs though, “Immortal royalty. Whatcha gonna do?” 

It’s that moment that Jarvis chooses to chirp in her ear,  _ “Miss, I’m afraid that I must point out that you have strayed from your original agreement with Mr. Stark.” _ Buzzkill….

She sighs, “J, plans never survive first contact with the enemy.”

_ “I fail to see the relevance of Helmuth von Moltke as there is no enemy at present.” _

“Don’t jinx me, Jarvis,” How to put this…, “We all knew something would happen,” Cas shoves a hand into Annabeth’s face because she’s passing silent judgment on Cas right now and she doesn’t want to see it, “But we have an updated plan for it so there’s no reason to call dad on me when it’s currently under control.”

After talking her dear AI brother out of tattling on her they realize that there is nothing to be done right now. Cas bunkers down on the couch for the evening after turning down one of the rooms from their host.

“Seriously it’s fine,” Truthfully, Cas doesn’t mind, “I’ve slept in way worse places.” Like an abandoned temple to Hermes which fell into tartarus. It’s not even that late yet anyway and they have work to do. Plus, Cas showed up running on a full tank of sleep so she’s good for another day and half(or at least until they find this Convergence focal point and protect the Earth). There is napping as well as meal breaks and hygiene stops because Annabeth is there. Darcy looks at Annabeth we heart eyes for the ease with which she gets Cas and Dr. Selvig to stop working.

Some time during this limbo day Darcy asks what is clearly a controversial question,“Are you sure that we shouldn’t try to contact Shield?” It’s somewhere around the tenth time that she’s asked.

And Dr. Selvig isn’t tolerating it, “We aren’t bringing Shield anywhere near this. You know that they wanted me to channel ambient radiant energy from the Universe in a bid to control the Tesseract.” He laughs like that’s funny. Honestly, it’s more than a little freaky that Shield is reaching for that kind of energy.

Just as Cas is finishing up an email for a proposal with the South Korean facility that gets first crack at the Cradle when it’s finished she hears keys in the front door.

“Jane!” Darcy yells but Cas is sort of frozen on the couch where she’s seated with her tablet. Whoa, “You can’t just leave like that! All the stuff we saw is spreading.” Then Darcy pauses to take in Jane’s getup, “Did you go to a party?” There’s literally nothing energywise coming off of Jane.

Di immortales. They didn’t leave it behind, did they? Or worse, what if they lost it? Gods….

“Cas?” Oh right, Jane’s talking to her.

Cas tries for a casual grin and hopes that it doesn’t look like a grimace, “Hey Jane. How’s Asgard?” Vaguely she notes Thor idling by the door but she’s mad at him for coming and going without an explanation.

“What are you doing here?” Well, that’s not a nice tone, “We have Annabeth.” Ouch. Cas is a little hurt by that. Sure, they don’t really hang out and technically they’re her employees but Cas likes Jane. Although, Jane is also really protective of her work and likes to maintain the illusion of independence. It’s why Cas’s main points of contact have been Darcy and Dr. Selvig.

Annabeth saves Cas from the awkward, “She was sent here by Olympus for that….red mist you found earlier.”

Yeah, she goes to open her mouth but Thor cuts her off, “The Aether is a dangerous weapon of the Dark Elves. They plan to use it to end all life in the Universe by using the Earth as a conduit.” She sighs and comes to the conclusion that these dark elves have it….wait. What? Why Earth? There’s nine ‘realms’ to choose from. It may have something to do with the energy from the Aether(?) being entwined with Olympus. Hmmmm….well, today sucks. The idea of universal destruction isn’t even a motivator. Maybe the scale is incomprehensible to her but why? Just why? Global conquerors are something that she’s dealt with but universe ending just feels like overkill.

“That’s cool,” Cas will not be letting the Asgardian royalty get between her and a quest though, “It was also used by the gods to form themselves and Olympus and….everything else including us,” Cas motions between herself and Annabeth. She’s getting the feeling that this super powerful artifact is more complicated than ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ “So we need it back.” Thor looks very surprised by that.

Dr. Selvig chooses that moment to enter the room and he smiles like a proud parent when he sees Jane, “Jane, how wonderful!” He moves to hug her tightly and then steps back, “You’ve been to Asgard.”

“Yes,” Jane smiles back briefly but it looks sad and strained, “Asgard was….different,” That’s a bad review, “Okay, the dark elves, Malekith,” That sounds like a big bad name, “They’re coming, okay? So I’m going to need everything you’ve got on this. All the work you’ve been doing on gravimetric anomalies, everything.” Good thing that they already have it all compiled and organized in the living room from while they were waiting. Cas should probably be more worried about this second alien attack….but Thor believes that there is only one ship left. 

Does it count as an invasion? Nah….just an attack.

Cas and Annabeth are very good at this briefing/command center thing by now. Since everything is already open in front of them Thor takes a moment to greet Annabeth and Cas. His heart isn’t in it like the last time they spoke…., “Thor? You alright?” If these evil Elronds have something else up their sleeves….

“Yes, I am fine,” Sure, he is, “But you would do well to be cautious when we face the dark elves. They….my mother and brother have been killed.” Shit….huh….Cas bets that a pin drop could be heard at this moment.

Annabeth takes over since she has the bloodline and all that jazz, “I’m sure that they will be welcome in the halls of Valhalla.” Thor nods and responds with a quiet thank you. 

Cas along with everyone else ignores the quiet ‘thank, God’ said by Dr. Selvig but he then hugs Thor and says, “I’m so sorry.” Yeah, Cas kind of gets why he’s grateful that his kidnapper/mindcontroller is dead. She’s a little bit bummed because she’s never going to figure out what Loki was really doing at the head of the Chitauri army. That’s also highly insensitive of her so she keeps her mouth shut.

It is sad that his mother is dead but Cas doesn’t really see how to help with that since she’s actually spent maybe two or three days around Thor. What’s that even like to him? A few hours to her? Minutes? Is there no actual relative difference because Asgardians perceive time the same way humans do? She doesn’t know.

All of the information that they have on the Convergence is projected in the living room although Cas has a feeling that it’s not often used. The hologram projector that is….because there are actual computer monitors in this house. Dr. Selvig is from an older generation though so she won’t hold it against him. His sciencing skills are still cutting edge.

Jane takes the lead on explaining the situation to them since Thor is reasonably subdued (⅔ of his family members just died….so….), “Malekith is going to fire the Aether at a spot where all the nine worlds are connecting.”

“So the Convergence focal point on Earth,” Annabeth says.

Perfect, “It’s a good thing that Jarvis, Dr. Selvig, and the interns are already looking for it,” Cas looks between Thor and Jane, “But if you have any suggestions on where it might be….” They don’t by the looks they exchange which is fine. They still have a little bit of time based on the data Jarvis has been providing.

Speaking of Jarvis,  _ “Miss, we are expecting an imminent alien attack. I must suggest we contact Mr. Stark.” _ He’s so right but….

Cas puts a hand to her ear so everyone knows she’s speaking with Jarvis, “I know buddy but we have Thor. It’ll be fine especially once I neuter this guy by stealing the Aether from him.” Cas has been carrying the pithos around since Thor arrived.

Thankfully, everyone ignores her little side conversation and listens to Dr. Selvig instead, “Unleashing the weapon on the Convergence points will amplify its impact,” Joy, “We’re talking universal, not planetary, ramifications if he succeeds.” Eh….not like they’d notice since they’d be dead, “For each additional world the power will increase exponentially.”

Thor does have some good news, “The alignment is only temporary. Malekith must be in exactly the right place at the right time.” Cas bets that the bad guys know where that is.

“Then we should probably figure out the right place too. We can get there first,” Thank you, Darcy.

Dr. Selvig takes a step back, “It has to be noted somewhere. This has happened before, thousands of years ago so the ancients must have seen it,” True, but it was before demigods and Chiron. It wasn’t before every civilization. Jericho was around back then but Cas doesn’t have any Greek knowledge to contribute. Dr. Selvig has a eureka moment by the look on his face though and dashes off to grab a map stashed behind some monitors.

He quickly spreads it across the table, “All the great ancient constructions, the Mayans, the Chinese, the Egyptians. They made use of the gravitational effects of the Convergence.” Eh….somewhat….maybe….sure, “And they left us a map.” The Mayan gods faded for certain as did most of the ancient Chinese deities but the Egyptian ones are still kicking. From that she knows that the Egyptian gods were involved in some of the more ambitious constructions(Mostly learned after talking to Apollo about Serapis). But sure, they can go with Dr. Selvig’s theory, assuming that the mortals failed to accurately date the Great Pyramids by around four hundred years.

Annabeth is also looking very doubtful and probably would much rather follow the data that Jarvis is using to narrow down a location for them, “Stonehenge,” He draws a line in red marker on the map, “Snowden, the Great Orme,” Isn’t that just a mountain? “These are all coordinates taking us….here.” Cas doesn’t know how - in fact, she doesn’t want to look into how tinfoil hat that was - but somehow all of those lines match up with Greenwich.

“Greenwich?” Baby Ian speaks up from the fringes and contributes to the conversation for the first time. He sounds just as uncertain as the rest of them feel though.

“Jarvis?” Cas just resigns herself to not following whatever just came out of Dr. Erik Selvig’s brain. She prefers her father’s trains of thought, “Survey says?” Her father makes sense. Cas is also (reasonably)sure that this is a genuine coincidence(a rarity but it happened to Dr. Selvig, not her) and that the focal point has drifted from Stonehenge due to Earth’s shifting changes over the last 5000 years. A couple of inches of continental movement over a few years add up, angles to the sun shift over time, the Earth’s magnetic field moves a little bit. The point is there are so many factors at work here and this X marks the spot is so Deus Ex Machina that not even Cas can avoid looking askance at it.

Maybe some gods were kind enough to put a redundancy in just in case the humans missed something somewhere. Now that sounds more plausible in her mind.

This time he speaks through one of the available devices and not just in her ear,  _ “Greenwich does fall within my current perimeter but I need more time to confirm.” _

However, it’s going to have to be good enough, “The automaton has spoken.” And Annabeth is probably right. It’s not like they have time to wait and see.

“The walls between worlds are going to be non-existent,” Jane adds unhelpfully, “Physics is going to go ballistic. Increases and decreases in gravity, spatial extrusions,” Which is a good reason for War Machine to stay on the other side of the Pond, “The very fabric of reality is going to be torn apart.” How are the other worlds dealing with this? Is there a Convergence prep kit on the other worlds like how there’s a tornado season and a hurricane season? More on that another time.

“Which is why we need to get there and set up the gravi-spikes,” Cas says while crossing her arms and hoping to all the gods that this doesn’t turn into Chitauri part two. Wait a second….Thor shows up and aliens get into a fight. It’s a trend. This is the third time. Whatever. She can deal with that later after she has the Aether contained and hands it off to Olympus.

Thor agrees. He summons Mjolnir from where he politely left it on a coat hanger. It is rather impressive when Point Break catches it with a resounding thud, “Let us go and end this.”

On the way out the door Annabeth quietly asks her, “What do we do if Thor tries to take the Aether?” Gods, please don’t let it come to that.

Cas sighs but glances at the back of the giant Asgardian, “We’ll have to fight. I really hope it doesn’t come to that,” It would be pretty one sided with a lot of running and dodging and praying. He fought the Hulk….Cas cannot fight the Hulk. Of course, a fight comes down to a lot more than just raw power but it helps.

~~~

So as it turns out, there is a 74.527% chance that the focal point of the Convergence will be over the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. This is not how Cas wanted to do her tour of London but this is how it’s going.

Annabeth takes charge of the gravi-spikes, “Darcy and Ian, you two help me hammer these all around the site. We don’t have a lot of time and I’ll be covering you. Erik and Jane, you two will be in the tower keeping the pockets and occurrences regulated.” She looks around, “This building is a monument and I’m not about to let it get destroyed by space anarchists.” Leave it to Annabeth to be more worried about the architecture than the entire universe. They did agree on the plan during the drive though.

But, “That puts me and Thor on Malekith directly,” She bites her lip before preceding, “I’m going to be honest. I don’t know when I’m supposed to open this,” Cas holds the pithos up in front of her face, “I’m not sure if we have to draw the Aether out of him somehow or wait until it’s exposed during his attack.” It would be really nice if she could just throw it at him and suck the whole thing in that way.

Seems unlikely though. Objects like this pithos typically have one caveat or another for their use.

Thor chooses to be positive, “I have every confidence in your skills, Cassandra. You are proven in battle and I’m certain we will succeed here.” Yeah, well, Thor’s also angry as hell and vengeful so that’s contributing to his mindset.

It’s not like they have a choice though, “Thanks, Tinkerbell.” Cas doesn’t have a bad feeling per say. It’s typical pre battle dread and discomfort, “Okay, I have to catch the angry red space sand with this pithos.” Everyone sort of looks at her now that she’s stated it out loud.

Darcy speaks first, “Did that sound better in your head?”

“Nope,” But she’s going to do it anyway.

She also knows that the moment Malekith touches down Jarvis will register her as ‘in danger’ and ping her father. It’s going to set up a domino effect. It’s honestly not fair because she’s too old to be grounded but they can do it. They can arrange her meetings and swamp her schedule so that she can’t do the things she wants to do.

It’s going to be hell.

And that’s assuming she survives fighting the aliens….again. Although these are different aliens. 

Cas and Thor plant themselves in the main square along the Thames. It’s honestly peaceful with the students milling around and it’s also early morning so jet lag has her brain all sorts of confused but whatever. 

It’s a nice day until the river gets disturbed by what must be an invisible spaceship traveling in their direction either that or it’s a shark, “Thor, lightning please. We have squishy mortals around us.” He doesn’t hesitate so fire off a blast immediately across the square and the river. It arcs around the ship removing it’s camouflage while effectively setting off a stampede of locals.

As long as they don’t stop to record this they can scream as loud as they want.

The design of the ship is strange, like a sword piercing the earth. It looks top heavy and the physics part of her brain wonders about aerodynamics but it’s a small part right now. Mostly she’s standing and griping her spear while lamenting her lack of complete armor. She had more protection the last time she fought an alien.

This time she has to make a really weird sight with old jeans, a kitty cation t-shirt, a jacket, a spear, and a pithos. She is the height of Spring fashion right now….Weird random thoughts.

The sight she makes is probably irrelevant in comparison to the damaged ship ripping into the ground as it makes it’s approach towards them. There’s still people screaming and running for cars (a few accidents have already happened by the alarm sounds) and Cas really wishes that they’d had more time to get the civilians out of the way. Hopefully no one got hurt during that shitty ass space parking job. At least there’s only one ship.

An elevator descends smoothly from the top of the ship and Cas exchanges a look with Thor before falling into a loose stance.

Here they go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a thought.
> 
> There's generally around four epic hero tropes. (Modern and historic)
> 
> 1 There's your glory/riches seekers. (Achilles, Yang from RWBY)
> 
> 2 There's your honor seekers. (Zuko in Avatar. Mulan.)
> 
> 3 There's your heroes are too heroic to do nothing. (Ruby from RWBY and Spiderman (any spiderman really))
> 
> 4 And then we have our heroes who just wander into it because they were doing something else and get roped into the proceedings. (Oedipus falls in here me and so does pretty much every demigod. Hobbits in LotR)
> 
> There's some overlap but it felt worth pointing out that Cas is most assuredly primarily that fourth category with some very reluctant 3.


	24. Cas Totally Has This Alien Thing Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, keep in mind that in comparison to the fight with the Chitauri this one is super short. Like under ten minutes short and I reflected that in the chapter.

The elevator reaches the ground level and a ramp forms at the base allowing several figures to exit the ship. The first two to come into focus are wearing very blank and very creepy masks while carrying what are obviously space rifles. (Guns...yay.)

The main guy with the half burnt face has to be Malekith and damn. The Tesseract felt similar to Olympus and so did the scepter. The Arc Reactor feels reminiscent of Olympus. This Aether that the Angry Pale Elf is carrying? That is what Olympus feels like. Power and potential. If she had any doubts about Apollo’s words before then they have been entirely forgotten. However….however, now she knows that they’re connected. How are they connected? The Tesseract, the Scepter, and the Aether….Is this the object that their mysterious invader was hoping to draw out?

Cas twitches and shifts in place in response to that thought and the very visible wormhole that swirls into existence above them, “Steady, Cassandra.” She nods back at Thor. She needs to focus on the now. This is just another battle and she’s already beaten aliens so this is nothing.

Malekith begins speaking and he has a villain voice. It’s resonant and deep, “You needn’t have come so far Asgardian,” He also completely ignores her which is fine, “Death would have come to you soon enough.”

“Not by your hand,” Thor says and begins his march forward. Welp, Cas moves to flank him. If he’s to be believed the Dark Elves are heavy hitters but should be in her weight class.

Malekith also takes long strides toward them, “Your universe was never meant to be.”

Ummm….says who? They’re a result of random explosions that gravity pulled together in highly miraculous and improbable ways, “And I guess that makes you the hero out fixing nature’s mistakes.” From the way Malekith locks eyes on here Cas probably should have kept her mouth shut.

“Every world and every family will be extinguished and brought back into the darkness of the beginning,” Ah….another person afraid of change so he violently fights against it. Got it. That makes some sort of sense. If one is under the illusion that change can be fought.

“Good luck with that,” Cas needs to not talk whenever she feels like it. She knows better but the Aether is making her nervous. Malekith roars in anger and sends finger-like projections of the Aether towards them. Thor takes the hit but Cas gets out of the way. She considers opening the pithos to see if it will work but….

_ Wait….Not yet….not yet…. _

She can’t argue with that. Instead, Cas charges the other Dark Elves and they must be dumb because they don’t dodge. Sure, Cas is smaller than them and from a planet that is probably a mudball in comparison to theirs technologically but she has a spear. Somehow she takes down three while hampered by the pithos tucked to her side before the rest start attacking her.

It’s inconvenient because there’s a lot but convenient because it keeps most of them on her and away from the civilians and Thor. The very same Thor that was just tossed away like a ragdoll.

Is now a good time to use her pithos?

_ Wait…. _ Nope. Killing aliens it is.

Well, Thor gets a good counter strike in with Mjolnir and sends Malekith flying back into the support columns around the square. Cas moves to keep close while entertaining her swarm of South Pole Elves. That is, she would have but one of the gravi-spikes near her goes off and suddenly most of her opponents are gone…

“Jarvis?” What is happening? Are they invisible? Cas doesn’t lower her guard even though the remaining dark elves look just as confused.

_ “Dr. Foster has managed to invert the gravimetric spikes allowing her to cause localized spatial displacement.” _ Wonderful. Teleportation mines.

“Warn a girl next time,” Cas moves to intercept an elf that got over the spontaneous disappearance of his buddies, “Please and thank.”

_ “If you had allowed me to contact Dr. Stark sooner I would have more resources with which to assist you,” _ Bullcrap, he….wait.

Cas almost fumbles her pithos but recovers while dodging a sword strike, “You told dad?” Without at least letting her know?

_ “Yes,”  _ Wonderful,  _ “Not that he wasn’t aware seeing as you have made the news.” _ Ha, she’s so dead and not from the aliens,  _ “Col. Rhodes is expected to arrive within the hour.” _ The Convergence will be over by then….whatever. If she has the situation under control by the time her uncle arrives it can only help her negotiations.

Sadly, she has more immediate problems. There are elves that want to kill her.

At this point Cas has lost sight of Thor but she has every confidence that if she remains near the ship it should work out. The elves that were attacking her directly have runoff, been warped away by Jane and Dr. Selvig, or are very dead….well, now they're dead. That last one was trying to shoot her from a distance but he caught her spear with his chest.

Above Cas’s head she can see the portals to the nine realms under the rule of Asgard coming into alignment. It’s magnificent.

“Disgusting, isn’t it,” Huh...where’d Thor go? She’s not built for fighting Malekith directly, not when he has the power Olympus was built on coursing through his veins but….he does look like a confident warlord sure of his victory. That is something Cas can work with. She resists the urge to call her spear back to her person. Right now, she’s a non threat to Malekith which is insulting but useful.

“It’s a little rough around the edges,” She can honestly concede to that, “But I live here.”

“You exist, child,” Ummm…., “I would not call that living,” Dude. Uncool. Something about the Aether must be overwhelming his system because his sclera have turned black as has his skin. It was sickly pale before like the poor bastard had never seen the sun, “You have marks from the Aether’s touch within you.”

“That I do,” Cas continues to glance around in hopes that Thor shows up again, “So do many beings on this planet. Your weapon has helped create a whole lot of life,” She thinks it’s more of a very versatile(possibly conscious) tool than a weapon.

That makes him angry, “Then watch as I undo it’s mistake,” Rude, “And bring back the age of darkness.” Red dust and sand(look that way but doesn’t feel that way) begins to fill the air and form a pillar reminiscent of an inverted tornado around both of them. Suddenly it’s very hard to breathe like standing before a very angry god or titan. It’s a good thing that she has practice.

The wormholes are all right there above them and the Aether snakes and winds its way up the Dark Elves’ ship, into the sky, and reaches into one of the portals. Well, it’s out.

Seems like as good a time as any to use her magical pottery.

Now, standing in the eye of one hell of a storm, Cas opens the pithos and everything just freezes. She’d been expecting some sort of vacuum experience and maybe loud sucking noise but that’s not what happened at all. There’s a beat of stillness and then the Aether starts pouring into the pithos in her hand. It’s power brushes past her on it’s way into the pithos and she both wants to use it and hide away from it. In fact, it drives Cas to one knee with the weight of its power. It reminds Cas of Percy’s story about sitting in Poseidon’s throne because it doesn’t feel very good in her hands either.

With all of this power Cas wouldn’t need the gods and neither would the other demigods. She kind of wants to keep it.

It’s not evil. It’s the ability to bend and reshape reality as the wielder sees fit.

~~ (She could have them back....just a little twist of reality...) ~~

But what would Cas do with all of it? What are the limits? Does it have those?

~~(She could rewrite the entire universe. She could make it safe.)~~

All those lives she could save. Save? It’s a rework of the truth itself. Could she? Could she have-

~~(But she really wants them back. Cas loves her friends now but she misses her friends from then.)~~

Would it be so horrible to bring back some fallen heroes? Assuming it worked….

~~(Would it be so wrong after everything she's given and lost? After all of the blood and pain?)~~

No….no, this isn’t for her. It’s too much. 

~~(She deserves better.)~~

If they were alive, she can think of several people who would hit Cas on the back of the head for those thoughts.

Cas wants to drop the pithos but something tells her that dropping it right now would be very bad. However, she bites her lip to stay quiet because this also hurts a fair amount(a lot, a lot and her hands  _ burn _ ) and Cas may have a nosebleed right now. The pithos is freezing cold and it feels like a million needles stabbing her hands. However, Malekith hasn’t noticed that the Aether was diverted away from the wormholes just yet. There’s too much power moving through Malekith for him to be aware of everything. He will notice eventually but with any luck she’ll have most of the Aether contained before he realizes what she’s doing.

“Malekith!” Or Thor could show up. So much for her remaining on the down low. Thor comes pushing through the still raging Aether carrying three more of the gravi-spikes while looking ready to fight. If only he’d waited another minute or so.

“Darkness returns, Asgardian,” Yes, monologue. Do it, supervillain. “Have you come to witness the end of-” He jerks in place and looks at Cas, “You, girl, what have you done?” 

Shit, “I think I saved the universe.” Technically, it was a team effort since the gods gave Cas the pithos and she has Annabeth and the others. However, if she’s about to be murdered then she’s taking all of the credit.

“You think you can stop this?” Ha….why not? She’s stopped a lot of far more labor intensive attempts to destroy the world. Malekith takes one step towards her before being impaled by one of the gravi-spikes. Thor hurled it like a Javelin. She never got a good look at the specs for those things because they’ve been a bit busy but they must have some sort of anomaly proximity alert.

She says this because it beeps and not two seconds later Malekith’s arm and shoulder blip out of existence….whoa. Jane is scary. She’s very scary. Thor throws another well aimed gravi-spike at Malekith but he hardly flinches at the impact or the surprise amputation, “The Aether cannot be destroyed.” Obviously, the thing is energy with personality. Judging by the current state of her hands(she hasn’t looked but based on how it feels it’s one hell of a sight) it’s an angry personality but it’s there.

“Maybe not,” Thor crouches and prepares to take a running leap where he is rejoined by his hammer. Thor plants the final gravi-spike in Malekith and viscously sends him crashing back into his ship, “But you can.” Epic. It severs what’s left of his connection to the Aether. Then Jane(or Dr. Selvig, she doesn’t actually know who’s on the controls) seals their victory by warping him away.

Awesome, her hands are still being burned by this pithos as the last of the Aether gets pulled inside, “Cas!” Annabeth comes sprinting across the square towards her with her hat fisted in her hand. That’s some perfect timing.

“Where the hell have you been?” Who cares, “Nevermind, grab the lid. It’s by my foot.” Annabeth doesn’t argue or defend herself. She just grabs the lid off the ground and slams it onto the pithos as the final streams of Aether flow inside. Once she does the whole thing warms quite a few degrees. It hurts but Cas carefully lowers it to ground and slowly lets go. It doesn’t stop the whimper from slipping out as she peels her hands off.

“Di immortales, Cas,” Yep, “Your hands….” Her face. Her sense of balance.

“I can feel them,” A lot actually and her arms are shaking, “But I’m not looking. Ambrosia, please.” Annabeth is even nice enough to put the square right in her face for her to eat. It’s not like it’s the first time one of them has fed the other following an injury. Cas is looking at the pithos and nudging it with her foot when -  _ danger _ \- the damaged spaceship caves in and begins to collapse on them.

Annabeth grabs the pithos and Cas’s arm and starts to pull her to the side out of the way of the collapsing ship. She has a moment to think it’s strange that Jane is running to cover Thor. He fell 30,000 feet and lived so the ship falling on him is unlikely to kill him.

Not that they’ll find out because, “Everybody okay?” Dr. Selvig uses the remaining gravi-spikes to send the ship to another planet. It’s very nice of him.

“Thanks, Erik,” Annabeth says. She’s dirty, out of breath, and has a few scratches dotting her arms and face. Otherwise she’s fine so Cas counts this as a win even if she’s pretty certain she has severe frostbite on her hands right now. She doesn’t fight Annabeth when she’s led to sit on some steps. She also doesn’t look as Annabeth carefully examines the damage, “You need more Ambrosia for this.” Sure, cool. Whatever.

As long as she can feel the appendages then she should be fine.

Okay. She needs something to focus on that isn’t her injuries. Cas casts a look around the very damaged square, “Jarvis, I see the police and the media but send our data to the local government so they know not to fly anyone out here until space calms down again,” She groans and looks up at the wormholes(but they’re starting to shrink), “Send the information to Fury too….but nothing proprietary like the gravi-spikes. Just make it clear that the situation is contained.” Cas looks at Annabeth, “Am I missing anything?”

Annabeth huff out a breath, “Maybe send the English some of the Damage Control protocols.”

Oh that’s a good idea, “Yeah, J, do that please….” Actually…. “And extend an offer to help clean up.”

_ “I was under the impression that you were already doing that, Miss.” _ He knows what she meant.

“Let’s try and get your feet wet, J,” Cas manages to smile a little bit, “Try to send in the Legion. Actually, connect me to the relevant authorities and I’ll request it directly.” 

Somehow it works. Cas manages to get permission to deploy several Iron Legionnaires which will be arriving well after Rhodey. She doesn’t want to celebrate using them because their presence means that there’s been a tragedy. However, it’s one of her creations. Yeah, she built them with her father but they’re her idea and they get to help.

~~~

Cas has kept the pithos tucked under her legs while her hands are out of commission. She can move them and they hurt a lot. They’ll hurt for a while but Annabeth is fairly certain that she’ll be fine which is as good as a clean bill of health in her opinion.

So while her fists are out of commission, she’s still fully prepared to kick and fight off anyone who tries to take the Aether away from her. It doesn’t stop her from tensing when the authorities start coming a little bit too close to injured jet lagged demigod currently experiencing pain and an adrenaline crash. Annabeth offered to try and find her a paramedic and some pain meds but there’s no way they’d be comfortable giving her the Cassandra Stark safe doses that Cas and Helen worked out.

Nah, she’ll wait it out and use it to get sympathy from Rhodey when he arrives which should be in the next ten to fifteen minutes according to Jarvis. However, it’s really inconvenient that she can’t call her spear to her side when Thor finally decides to mosey on over with Jane tucked under one arm (the height and size difference between them is really funny).

“Cassandra!” He sounds better. He’s a mess though. It probably has something to with having gotten justice for his dead. Cas knows the feeling, “Your injuries will heal, yes,” She nods but doesn’t say anything. Her mind…..she needs to have a long talk with someone about the lines she will and will not cross just to solidify that for herself.

“Cas,” Jane says from where she’s huddled against Thor, “About the Aether-”

“It’s going to Olympus,” Cas firmly cuts off any statement or potential argument to the contrary.

“I agree,” Thor says and Cas does a double take, “You’ve managed to safely contain the Aether’s power and you’ve more of a claim than Asgard does,” He takes a moment to look around the wreckage the dark elves caused, “Olympus has more of a claim than Malekith ever did given what your gods did with it.” Sleep around? Start wars? Torture each other? Destroy cities? She’s not in a good space to be thinking favorably of them.

However, a whole lot of stress left Cas after that statement, “Not gonna lie, I was a little worried we would have an issue here.” But it’s not a problem so she grins up at Jane, “So Jane, does your boy-toy always come with a side of alien invasion?” Thor looks so confused but Jane sputters and blushes. She wonders what she said…, “If so, please warn us about date night several weeks in advance so I can put the work orders in.” As if on queue another column across the way collapses and brings down part of the roof.

Annabeth must be screaming on the inside.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Boy-toy?” Oh gods, Cas got Thor to say boy-toy.

Poor Jane looks mortified and very tired but this is a welcomed distraction for Cas, “Yeah Jane, are you going to educate Thor?”

“Maybe later,” Jane says. Hopefully Jane loosens up a little bit. She was kind of short with Cas earlier but the woman is highly territorial and protective of her research which Cas gets….but she’s trustworthy. At this point, Cas has probably earned the benefit of the doubt from Jane Foster and Friends. Also, Cas really likes Darcy.

“It will have to be,” Huh? Thor’s gone back to serious, “I must return to Asgard and speak with my father. There is much that we….There are many things I would discuss with him.” Already? The fight just ended and he’s going to fly up his rainbow bridge. Wow, so helpful.

“You’re leaving?” Jane does not sound thrilled so Thor obviously didn’t warn her. 

Thor has the decency to look sheepish for springing this on them, “Yes,” He focuses on Cas again, “I intend to return when I can,” Which means Cas needs to look after Jane again and probably do a better job since the woman literally fell off the planet on Cas’s watch. Also, if he’s coming back then Cas should probably look into that diplomatic immunity angle.

So yeah fine, that sounds possible, “See you later then but seriously don’t bring another alien attack with you.” Those two lovebirds wander off to probably have a more private goodbye before Thor exits via rainbow. Cas remains where she is as Annabeth and Jarvis handle things so that she can heal up a bit. It shouldn’t take too long since Annabeth said only skin looked damaged. There are an awful lot of nerve endings in the hands though.

However, that doesn’t mean they’re better when,  _ “Miss, Col. Rhodes has entered the local air space.” _ Oh gods….

This is not going to go as well as the post-Chitauri hug.

She probably looks like a moping dog or...she probably looks like Ian and Darcy looked when Cas got them away from the police. The sound of repulsors screams overhead and Cas shrinks in on herself quite a bit when War Machine lands in the middle of the square. That’s deliberate, so is the way he slowly turns before facing her and marching his way toward the edge of the mess and her current seat.

To others, it may seem strange that Cas is far more intimidated at the prospect of being lectured by Rhodey than she was of Malekith with his universe killer powers. Her answer? Malekith could only kill her. Rhodey has to be so disappointed in her right now.

She tries for a tired smile, “Hey Rhodey, fancy seeing you here.” Annabeth, the traitor, stays far away but they can talk more later.

“Alright,” He doesn’t even take the helmet off, “Before we get into this, do you have anything to say for yourself?” She respects him and he’s an amazing uncle which is probably why this is so mortifying.

She gets one sentence to mitigate the blame, “I helped save the universe with a vase and preliminary investigations indicate that there were zero casualties.” That’s literally all she’s got going for her right now.

Rhodey crosses his arms and opens his helmet, “Good for you,” Life was so much simpler when her mortals were still amazed by her heroic feats. However, she’ll take this pause as an indication to continue.

“Annabeth was here too. She was around and helped protect everyone from the….” Damn, she has to say it out loud, “From the dark elves.” Rhodey raises a brow at her, “Thor is here.” Of course, by her luck there’s a great beam of iridescent light that chooses that moment to strike the Earth, “Thor was here.” 

He sighs but gestures towards her, “What did you do to yourself?” Cas resigns herself to whatever comes next. It’s all out of a place of care.

Her father was wise to send Rhodey in his stead.

~~~

It takes a couple of hours for Cas to finish ‘recovering.’ Honestly, she doesn’t know how mortals do it. They take forever to heal and it looks so inconvenient to have to wear a cast or something like that. It’s part of the reason why she’s so excited that the Cradle is coming together.

Sure, she’s had to wrap injuries like breaks and stuff but it’s never been for more than a week. Her full recovery from tartarus took nine days and a lot of food.

Rhodey interrogates her to within an inch of her life and provides colorful commentary too. There’s not much for him to critique because she really did make good choices mostly, “And when you found out there were aliens coming you decided that two demigods and an Asgardian were enough.” Mostly….

“With gravity the way it was, you would have become Mecha-Colonel of Nidavellir,” She shoots back. They literally could not call in air support safely with the way reality was shifting at the time.

It goes better than expected but Cas just knows her next few months at Stark Industries are going to be hell. She’s going to get all of the worst possible tasks to do from Pepper. And her father? Yeah, it’s going to suck so bad.

That’s for later though because right now Cas is trying to help the authorities understand what just happened. She has help. There are perfectly capable scientists with her and they can explain what happened while Cas keeps her pithos under the radar. Strictly speaking, there’s not much she can do directly to help since she’s a foreigner and Cas doesn’t actually have the authority to allocate funding for repairs(No one will stop her but she needs to run it past her father and the Queen first).

So while Cas is finishing up answering the same questions again (....this dude is MI5….cool) that she’s been answering for the past few hours she doesn’t react when she catches sight of yet another suit out of the corner of her eye however, “Dr. Stark,” What the hell, “I need to debrief you.” Cas gets caught staring and Rhodey (who’s been like a large judgmental metal shadow) interprets it as her being tired.

They never met so Rhodey doesn’t know, “Look, she needs a break,” She should be fine for a while longer, “If you have further questions you know how to contact her.” Probably but….

That’s Agent Coulson, the armed accountant, “Didn’t you die?” Rhodey may be right about her being tired if she’s seeing things.

“The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated,” He says it so blandly but clearly the man’s been waiting to use that line.

“Cas?” Rhodey sounds a bit concerned but she ignores him. 

Instead she blinks and squints to clear her vision. Nothing changes so this isn’t a weird hallucination, “Fury used your fake death to emotionally manipulate the Avengers….both him and you are malakes.” And Cas doesn’t like them.

Agent Coulson completely ignores her, “I have some questions for you regarding the incident that took place here today as well as some follow up on the Convergence data you sent to Shield.” Ugh….He’d better not try to press her too much.

“You know,” Cas just can’t resist, “Faking your death to motivate the team was not a way to endear Shield to me.”

“We know,” Coulson actually smiles at her, “Director Fury felt that honesty would go a long way.” She’s irritated and feeling stabby but he’s smiling. Coulson never smiles….

Fair enough, but she doesn’t hold back a snort at the idea of Shield being honest, “Ask your questions,  Schrödinger.” Cas does in fact answer Agent Coulson’s questions however, she goes out of her way to give the most roundabout ones possible. She also revels in the fact that all of the events of the Convergence have been recorded and shared across the planet before Shield had boots on the ground. Classic. Everything will be straightened out once they get the detailed information from the British but Cas is channeling her current state into frustration. Her target is once again Shield.

It’s like they want her against them. Maybe Fury does.....checks and balances and all that. But that is far to deep a rabbit hole to crawl down when she feels the way she currently does....like shit.

Around the time Cas finishes trying to irritate Coulson into a real grave the scream of repulsors sounds over the square again. Oh, they look gorgeous. Obviously, they were all tested and approved for field work but there’s something about seeing five members of the Iron Legion perform a coordinated landing in public.

She’s outdone herself with this. Cas ‘introduces’ the drones and gives permissions to the local authorities for the direction of their efforts. It’s not that much work. Mostly the dead elves….and the rubble from the naval college. 

This is honestly a perfect live test for these guys. They’re not under fire and the damage is contained to the immediate area. It’s also completely worth the sleepless nights and her future schedule to see the look on Coulson’s face when the Iron Legion gets to work.

So she gets to test and show off the new drones and London gets free disaster clean up.

That’s called a win-win.

Unfortunately, Cas does still have a quest to complete so she leaves everything in the hands of Annabeth who promises to get a good picture of the Wellington Arch for Cas. She may have….feelings regarding her mother but it’s still a cool monument. Rhodey remains behind too, mostly to oversee the Iron Legion if something goes wrong(he did make some suggestions and he knows how they’re supposed to work).

This means that Cas gets to drag her tired self back to the Quinjet with her quarry. It also means that Cas gets a few blessed hours of uninterrupted sleep thanks to Javis being her pilot. Gods, she has no idea how she’d survive without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I need to let you guys know now.
> 
> I've been doing some looking into some a the comic info on Thanos's origins and I think that I'm going to lean more into that than the MCU. Only because there's so much that doesn't make sense. That for example his age....evidently in the MCU he's supposed to be younger than Thor while in the comics he's been around since before the dawn of human civilization and Odin himself fought him.
> 
> That works better for where I'm guiding this story too.
> 
> This infinity stones are not sentient in the sense that they're going to have favorites and talk to specific people.
> 
> My version of the infinity stones will be aware of themselves and the other stones but are very much beyond the level of existences where you'd find humans.
> 
> ALSO, I'm in nursing school now and I'm really excited. So yay. Not strictly relevant but I really wanted to share that.


	25. Penny in the Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a lot of debate that went into this chapter and how I wanted to approach it.
> 
> It's important that Cas can't do too much too quickly.
> 
> It's important that I set the stage for the rest of the movies(the BIG plot).
> 
> It's important the I establish how my universe is fundamentally different from the MCU(other than throwing demigods in there).

Instinct is a funny thing. Some are born to a person but others are developed overtime. Take for example Cas’s ability to fall asleep on the couch in the workshop and not be disturbed if her father drops something or forgets she’s there and raises his music volume. Rhodey has similar privileges and so do most of the people she considers friends and family. There are exceptions. Travis and Connor cannot get near her nor can most of the Hermes campers if they’re up to something.

It’s mostly chalked up to her albeit limited survival goals. Her survival is a secondary goal usually but an important one.

Pretty much, Cas knows if she’s in the presence of a threat whether it’s an actually dangerous one or someone who’s looking to laugh at her expense. Sometimes it’s both. That has happened.

So in theory, during her flight home with Jarvis at the helm and nothing but the sky and the Atlantic to look at, Cas should be able to sleep like a baby because it’s safe. And yet, somewhere in the realm of sixty degrees west Cas snaps awake in her seat and summons her spear. There shouldn’t be any danger here. No alarms are blaring. The pithos is strapped into the seat opposite her. She has no outstanding issues with any wind, sea, or sky deities.

There’s no reason for her mental red alert right now. Still, “Jarvis, sit rep?”

_ “All systems are well within normal ranges, Miss,”  _ Rings out reassuringly through the empty Quinjet,  _ “We shall be arriving ahead of schedule due to favorable winds.” _ Zeus must want the Aether back in Olympian hands ASAP.

“Thank you,” She still gets up and moves around the cabin a little. Maybe she’s still a little keyed up from the fight. It wasn’t even ten minutes long so maybe her brain is having difficulty processing that the threat is over….nah. That doesn’t sound like her. She pulls a bottle of water from the fridge and sits back down. They’re not far away now so she’ll stay awake rather than doze and risk being groggy for her arrival.

“Hello Cassandra,” She resists the urge to cringe, “Your reaction time is better than when I found you but I see you’re as oblivious as ever.” Ah, she’s in a teaching mood. Wonderful.

“Hello mother,” Cas stands and faces her mother with a shallow bow, “This is unexpected.” And unwanted.

_ “Miss, shall I-” _

“It’s fine, Jarvis,” Cas doesn’t look away from her mother who could not pass for a mortal today. Her golden wings are folded tightly against her back and she wears a beautiful purple embroidered chiton, a color for Ancient Greeks of status and means. There’s no himation over it though since her mother could be called to action at any moment. No encumberment and no slowing down. 

_ “We will be arriving at Avengers Tower in twenty three minutes.” _ She doesn’t know if that was meant to be a comfort for her or a warning for her mother. Either way it’s appreciated.

Nike, the goddess of Victory, is beautiful. If only she wasn’t so….focused.

“I see you're just as attached to the virtual butler as your father is,” Her mother finds Jarvis amusing for some reason.

Well, Cas doesn’t, “I consider Jarvis my brother.” He’s her father’s brain child like Athena from Zeus.

“Yes,” Her mother is still amused, “Your computer brother. It is precious.” Whatever, it’s better to be on her mother’s good side if Cas has to be in her presence. Her mother tilts her head and nods to the pithos, “Have you opened it?”

Cas nearly jumps back, “No!” She saw what it did and she doesn’t want anything to do with it other than delivering it, “I’m bringing it to Olympus as promised.”

Then her mother smiles at her, “It would be completely safe for you. You already rejected its power in London,” How does she know that? Cas does her best not to show how disconcerted she is at her mothers knowledge of her thoughts, “You would’ve had to in order to seal the pithos.” Right, okay that makes some sense.

“It wasn’t that hard,” Mostly, she was in considerable physical pain at the same time so that helped, “The sooner Mt. Olympus has the Aether the better.”

The look her mother aims at her is one that a teacher gives to a student who’s just made an obvious and humorous mistake, “The Aether….you don’t really think an object with the power to turn belief into reality shares a name with the protogenoi of the heavens and light, do you?”

Ummmm…. “Isn’t it just a false cognate?” The dark elves called it the Aether and they came before Asgard according to Thor. That means it’s their word not Asgard’s. There are approximately one hundred billion stars just in the Milky Way galaxy. Some of them likely have habitable worlds with sentient populations which means languages. There’s probably some unrelated sound repetition. That’s just statistics.

“No. Close, but no,” Her mother shakes her head, “You know that the gods draw power from the beliefs of humanity,” Yeah, everyone knows that but Cas nods and provides the expected ‘Yes mother’ before she continues, “This means that humans are able to project information through the collective unconscious.” Exactly, it’s why some societies share cultural details even if they’ve never come in contact with each other. A great and wild example is Kinich-Ahau, the Mayan sun deity, and Apollo. Kinich-Ahau had different aspects that controlled disease, medicine, poetry, and music. 

What are the odds….

They’re not the same. She knows because Apollo said so. Kinich-Ahau and the rest of that pantheon faded into their word for oblivion(Xibalba? Maybe...not her department.) thanks to the Conquistadors, smallpox, and missionaries.

The collective unconscious is also what allowed the gods to fill the niches the ancient humans needed them to.

This isn’t exactly relevant right now, “Leading to gods and heroes and where we are now. How does this matter?”

Her mother sighs in annoyance, “Cassandra, if you can communicate with sound then you can hear as well as speak.” Oh…., “Therefore?”

“If humans can communicate their thoughts to the abstract then….are humans telepathic?” They can give thoughts so they should be able to receive them as well….She’s never spoken to anyone mentally and she really doesn’t want to. People do not need to see what goes on in her head. In fact, no one should go near her thoughts ever outside of what she chooses to share.

The snort that comes from her mother would be cause for laughter under other circumstances but she’s transporting a scary object over the ocean, “Hardly, that would be like saying birds know the future because they know to fly south for the winter,” Ah, more general then, “Humanity can be influenced by a loud enough signal from,” She points up at the sky and Cas just knows that her mother doesn’t mean Olympus. “Be prepared to encounter some familiar words from unfamiliar places.” What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Whatever, “So what is it actually called? Since the Aether is wrong.”

“Truth,” Uh….that can’t be right, “As the wielder chooses to perceive it.” Oh gods, she was right. This is Tomb Raider and that’s the Illuminati triangle. Percy was right. Only the truly insane would choose to be a demigod. “It let Helios be the sun, yet allowed Apollo to fly the sun across the sky. All that until the mortal worshipers provided enough belief that Olympus no longer needed to rely on it. You could view it as the physical representation of reality.”

Cas swallows and gears up for the unpleasant questions because she has her mother in front of her giving out all of this information(for some unknown reason and she knows there’s a cost. There’s always a cost), “Why is it like the Tesseract and the Scepter?”

“No,” What? “That is a useless question. You already know the answer.”

Right….does she? The space sand that was hidden in some sort of reality pocket that opened during the Convergence is connected to the Tesseract and the Hypno-Scepter. How? Well, what does she know about them? The Tesseract is a source of near infinite energy but so is Scepter based on the data recovered from the Helicarrier. The….reality bending rock is very powerful too if it has the potential to destroy….no Malekith wanted to bring back the Darkness. So this god catalyst had the potential energy to rewrite the Universe(using the Convergence as a catalyst) in the vision of any wielder that can withstand it. 

The Tesseract has all of that energy potential too but it opens portals….it changes distances and pinches two points in space together bridging them and forming a wormhole. However, while it communicated with Dr. Selvig (The Aether ‘showed’ Jane what Malekith planned to use it for. Why? Bragging or warning?) the Tesseract did not influence him like the Scepter did. The scepter controlled people and altered their wills. True mind control. So the Scepter has control over….spirit maybe? Will?

Physical representations of fundamental universal aspects with some form of awareness….just what she needed.

Next question then and she can go back to thinking about the implications of three of them being on Earth later over ice cream while watching Scrubs, “Did whoever sent the Chitauri believe that they could draw the….draw  _ it _ out by attacking Mt. Olympus?”

“No,” Thank the gods, “It was sealed in what amounts to a pocket dimension similar to Mt. Olympus and unreachable until the Convergence. That Olympus was attacked was a wonderful twist of the Fates,” Her mother smiles sharply, “But you understand what that means, don’t you?”

Maybe not something to be thankful for then. There’s another. There were four of these things directly associated with her planet at the same time and no one had any idea, “There’s another. So I met distance….no…” This is three dimensional not linear, “Space, reality, and spirit? Then what’s the other one?” Gods, why is this happening now? There were thousands of years and hundreds of generations of heroes who could’ve dealt with this but it had to be Cas.

“Don’t ask questions you aren’t ready to hear the answer to, Cassandra,” But it makes so much more sense now. Whoever sent the attack bet the Scepter and planned to triple their investment wait…. “Did you figure it out?” Cas nods. The Chitauri did come to take over but probably not for Loki. The Universe exists on a 5,000 year cycle.

If the Chitauri had overrun the Earth then they would’ve gotten the Tesseract and the Scepter. Eventually they would’ve gotten this other unknown one she really doesn’t want to hear about. Beyond that, it was just a matter of waiting until the door to the ‘Aether’ opened up. The timing of the attack is too perfect to have not been planned.

What kind of beings can plan an attack around a universal event that happens once every five thousand years? She looks at the pithos that’s now exposed and out in the open. Once it’s on Mt. Olympus it’ll be safe again but still, “They’re going to come here?” How does she protect her people from that? She can’t even protect her family from that. Cas thought she felt small on Mt. Olympus under the eyes of the gods. The gods derived the beginning of their power from just one of those objects….

“They are,” Well, her mother doesn’t sound terrified but why would she. She’s the goddess of Victory so she doesn’t understand loss or failure as anything other than a trait found in the opposition, “But Cassandra, you have time. That is far more than most kings and civilizations had before war reached them so I expect that you’ll win.”

“How much?” How much time could possibly be enough?

Her mother crosses her arms and her wings shift behind her, “Hopefully enough time to prove the threat is real without revealing the existence of primordial objects capable of altering the entire universe,” That’s not particularly helpful but that is an important detail. Shield got testy with just one. Cas doesn’t want to imagine what the world would do with three of them. Right, “Aren’t you glad I ensured you had the best education possible?” No, she’s not, “And besides, the Chitauri weren’t that impressive. All of that space age technology and they couldn’t beat one city with almost no warning.” That’s actually very true and very reassuring. Terrible and ancient power doesn’t mean much without an impressive army to claim the prizes. 

If only her mother was always this helpful. If only her mother didn’t use every single one of their conversations to drop a life altering bombshell on her, “Thank you, mother.” This is overwhelming and terrifying but knowing more details doesn’t change what’s coming. It only helps her prepare.

“Congratulations on your success,” Ah, this was her reward. Lovely. Hey, you saved the universe. Have some existential dread, “I imagine we will talk again soon.” Preferably not.

_ “.....Miss?” _

Huh? She looks at her mother in confusion because she knows that voice but it sounded staticy and not like it’s from one of the many available speakers. Her mother smiles placidly back, “Our time must be up. Until next time, my daughter.”

_ “...up...arriving.” _

Jarvis?

A brain stabbing alarm has Cas jumping from her seat in the Quinjet from which she can see the Tower. What? She was just over the….oh. Her mother dream hacked her. That’s a first. She’s heard of it happening to others but it’s never happened to her before. As Cas glances around more than a little disoriented she decides that she doesn’t like it, “I’m up, J. Anything unusual happen?”

_ “An entirely uninteresting flight, Miss. Although, you did start snoring just north of the Azores.” _

Oh please, “I don’t snore, Jarvis.” Cas would’ve gotten her ass kicked by her cabinmates every night if she snored.

_ “As you say, Miss.” _ And now she’s doubting herself when she already has her mother’s words running on repeat.

The Quinjet makes its final approach to the Tower and yep there he is. Her father’s waiting in the landing bay. Cas is an adult. She’s grown up and can take care of herself. She went most of her life without a dad. However, she has one now.

He’s probably more than a little confused but when the jet lands and Cas jumps down the ramp abandoning the pithos for now. Nah, she has more important things to do like hugging her dad. She understands that knowing about the god catalyst does not change her current approach or plans. She also knows that she has this awesome person she’s currently hugging.

“Cassie?” He returns the hug immediately but she can tell that he wants to pull back and figure out what’s going on with her, “What happened?”

“Later,” Much later if at all possible, “Just...not now.”

He doesn’t seem to mind too much, “This doesn’t get you out of explaining the evil gnomes.”

She laughs into her father’s shoulder, “Dark elves, old man. Get your ears checked.” Annabeth said something about them being called Svartalves which is one hell of a name. This is a much better thing to be doing than thinking about monsters lurking out in space.

~~~

Her father’s reaction to the Tesseract, the Scepter, and the god catalyst can be equated to his reaction to the warning about the aliens coming back(it takes him a few hours to pull the whole thing out of her). At first he’s a little skeptical since Cas said it was a dream visit but she’s sure. She was visited by her mother(had the rug ripped out from under her again) and this was confirmed when Apollo popped in again.

“Congratulations hero!” He did not read the room but Cas cracks a smile anyway. Her father is very unimpressed from his spot next to her. The pithos is seated on a table not far out of reach. That thing is very well made because there is no energy leakage at all. Very fallout secure.

Ah well, Cas does like Apollo, “Thanks,” Then she asks a question that’s been on her mind for a while, “Are you the god of heroes now?”

“That’s very kind,” And his smile is blinding, “However, that title still belongs to Heracles.”

Eh, Cas isn’t overly enthused about him, “As long as Zeus has him guarding the Pillars of Hercules he’s not very helpful.” And with any luck he’ll stay there forevermore. She doesn’t like the bitter and ungrateful minor god. He had a family waiting for him in the afterlife but he chose godhood over Elysium so he shouldn’t blame Olympus for his frustration, “I’ll vote for you.” Cas isn’t the type to build shrines like Jason’s been doing but the next time she has a meal in Camp Half-Blood she’ll dedicate part of her offering to him.

“That’s just dandy,” Her father cuts in, “Listen, can we get the divine battery out of my building?” That’s probably a very good idea. Cas takes the pithos from the table and presents it to Apollo with all of the uncaring aplomb she can muster. It probably looks more like a really flat and wooden performance but she’s not up to her usual standards right now.

“Lord Apollo, may I present your lost Olympian relic,” She tries not to pull her hands away too fast when he takes it. The pithos is not something that she wants to be in contact with anymore but based on his expression, Apollo noticed.

“I hope the next time we meet is more celebratory in nature,” Apollo says before vanishing. See, Cas wouldn’t mind that but she would love it even more if the gods never needed her for anything ever again. At least she doesn’t need to go to Olympus personally.

Her father takes a moment to rub his eyes while the revelations of the day hit him. It’s funny because Cas slept on the flight back and she still feels like she’s running on fumes, “Alright, let’s go over the South Korea proposal because it’s going to run your life for the next six to eight months.” 

Cas blinks at her father from where she’s standing, “Did I mention that I helped save the known universe?”

“You did. Now get over here, mini-god,” No sympathy….

The next several hours are mind numbing and probably qualify as some form a torture. Then Pepper shows up from her last meeting and wraps Cas up in a hug. This is immediately followed by fussing even though she’s absolutely fine which of course rotates around to ‘if she’s fine then she can do this too.’ Her father is such a  _ dad _ . At least he isn’t mad that she called the Iron Legion on its maiden voyage without him.

Whatever.

She’d never change anything about her cobbled together family.

“By the way,” Cas side-eyes her father now that Pepper is here, “Are you alright?”

It’s completely unexpected by the surprised look her father sends her way, “Did I hear that right?” Ummm….a glance at Pepper tells Cas that she’s on her own, “You play D&D in London but ask if I’m alright.”

It’s not unexpected, “Well…” How to phase? “There were wormholes….I just wanted to check in with you.”

He sighs and passes a hand over his face, “Yes Cassie, I am fine.” Not very convincing but Cas is pretty sure Pepper will have a secondary conversation with him once Cas leaves. Either that or Pepper learned how to actually read minds and is staring at her father to do just that.

She could be wrong though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of Transcript from Interview with Cassandra Stark Summer of 2012
> 
> Interviewer: Wow
> 
> Stark: You said it, not me.
> 
> Interviewer: It is wow. You're a real hero and we have a lot to talk about today.
> 
> Stark: I hope so. I skipped out on beach day for this.
> 
> Interviewer: Beach day?
> 
> Stark: Yeah, you know, sand, ocean, volleyball. Beach day.
> 
> Interviewer: We'll swing back around to that if we have time.
> 
> Stark: Sure, it's pretty normal though.
> 
> Interviewer: Of course [small pause] In 2011, you and your father gave the world an easy to swallow story about where you've been all this time.
> 
> Stark: Easy to swallow? 
> 
> Interviewer: Yes, how much of that is actually true. There's a lot of confusion behind your origin given recent revelations.
> 
> Stark: The funny part is that most of that story is still true.
> 
> Interviewer: How so?
> 
> Stark: Well, [thoughtful pause] my dad really didn't know about me and I was raised by a friend of the Olympians, my mother's family, Chiron.
> 
> Interviewer: Chiron?
> 
> Stark: He's the greatest trainer of demigods to ever live. I could give you a list of his students but we'd be here for a long time.
> 
> Interviewer: Wow.
> 
> Stark: I know.
> 
> Interviewer: This is fascinating stuff but I'm more curious about you specifically.
> 
> Stark: Your loss, I know a lot of way more interesting beings.
> 
> Interviewer: Of course you do[another pause] why didn't your father know about you?
> 
> Stark: I'm sorry?
> 
> Interviewer: In the stories we've received so far, the demigods are always raised by their mortal parent. Why weren't you?
> 
> Stark: [sigh] I get why everyone wants to know this, but in this case and in this case alone with regards to me and my past, the answer is no.
> 
> Interviewer: Excuse me?
> 
> Stark: Next question. I don't want to answer that one. It's a private family matter.


	26. Is it a Vacation if There's Work Involved? (Is it Work if it's Science?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side quest adventure time ;)

Human beings have forty six chromosomes. Within those coils of DNA are the instructions which build an entire person. Within those coils lay the genes for dramatics and unorthodox displays of behavior.

“Freedom!” Of which Cas has far too many, “Fare thee well, jailer. I am so far out of here.” She says this while bursting out of the elevator to the Tower penthouse. There’s a couple of packed bags around somewhere.

“You’re only leaving for a few days, Cassie.” That is correct Pepper, but….

“Though I was innocent of the crimes attributed to me,” She continues without acknowledging the Queen’s statement. Cas was in fact involved in clean up even if she couldn’t be there which implies her connection to the mess. Although she may have gone overboard in the aftermath when the WSC wanted to talk with her following Coulson’s report. It went a little like ‘No, we will not be diminishing the scary of what happened in London. That’s alien attack number two in two years.’ Their admittedly weak attempt at minimizing the importance of the events in London did get Rhodey more on board with Ultron though so something good came out of that mess.

Earth can exist and hope that there’s always a friendly enhanced ready to fight for them at the drop of a hat. There wasn’t even enough time to gather ‘The Avengers’ in this instance.

“Then you didn’t fight off another alien attack without warning anyone?” Pepper is just slaying Cas right now for no reason. She did not complain about her additional workload. She didn’t even complain when she didn’t get to go back to London personally to help out. That’s a big deal for because as previously stated, Cas likes to see things through to the end.

“I served my sentence and paid my debt to society,” However, it’s a very special time now. Actually, this is the first time that Cas is doing anything to celebrate it(sort of, there’s other things to do on the way) and she’s really excited.

“Debt to society?” Pepper stands in the middle of the room with her arms crossed. She shakes her head and chooses to accept it, “I don’t know where you got that one from.” Movie or TV probably.

It’s been months since the dark elves thing. It’s been a whole two seasons which means, “It’s Spooktober. There's a good reason for me to be like this.” Cas has never really done anything for Halloween but it’s such a big deal for the baseline humans, particularly baseline humans in New England. Social Media says so.

Yes, this is happening. Cas read the Crucible. She’s seen the movies. Cas is going to Salem, Massachusetts for All Hallow’s Eve. It’s actually kind of funny because Halloween has no connection to the Greeks at all but the Celts sure are awesome for having triggered this(Celts referring of course to the collection of Iron Age tribes of Gaul and the British Isles). The spirit and concept of Samhain was not to dress in poorly made costumes and get candy from neighbors and yet that’s what America made it into.

But Halloween equals witches and scary. And witches and scary equals the Salem Witch Trials. Now historically, twenty five people were killed due to fear and propaganda and that’s sad, not as bad as the Spanish Inquisition, but still sad. It’s also a travel hotspot for the holiday.

Cas pulls her phone when she gets a text notification, “Hey, Annabeth and Grover are downstairs,” She’s ready to skip out the door with the essentials, “Seriously though, do you need me for anything else?” Please, say no. After she leaves they’ll be picking up Percy and heading north. First to Boston on the obligatory stop to see the Chase family. They’ll also be visiting Thor who actually did come back to Earth. He’s sort of playing house with Jane right now while she continues her work and flies around with Dr. Selvig for being the super famous physicists that invented the gravi-spikes. They’re not holding her breath for how long that relationship lasts. The longest continuous relationship a god had with a mortal that Cas knows of was Hades and Ms. Di Angelo but he was in and out often from what Nico remembers. Regardless, it doesn’t really bode well for the SS Fosterson.

Back to the travel plans, maybe she can kidnap Darcy? That would be fun. Eh, some other time. This is going to be demigod time from Monday to Saturday and the best part is that Percy made the argument that it’s not a vacation. Cas will be poking at the Asgard relics for a while and that means it’s work with a day or two off.

“No,” Pepper sends Cas a rye smile, “Get out of here before you take the shortcut.” That was one time...

Either way, their journey will end in Salem for Halloween(it’s a Thursday this year but it’ll still be fun) to do the museum and tour thing which sounds boring but it’s not. Also, street performances and markets will be open along with reenactments.

And whatever else they can find.

It may seem strange that a demigod wants to celebrate Halloween when their lives are already overflowing with monsters on a regular basis. Well, this is for the fun kind of monsters.

In an effort to keep things low key, they’re taking Percy’s car which is an SUV. Does he need an SUV in New York City? Yes actually, he does. The trunk space is a demigod emergency stockpile. Also, Percy ended up transferring to Stony Brook University in Long Island with it’s killer marine biology program. He was promptly adopted by the program head because he can ‘talk’ to fish(and horses). 

He’s content to go with it as long as no one goes too….let’s say Dr. Moreau on Percy. They’ve gotten good reviews from Percy so they’re willing to work with demigods and utilize some less orthodox teaching methods. Which is good. The school is kind of ideally located for the kids that would rather commute from Camp Half-Blood than move to Lamark High-Rise.

Cas’s father is somewhere in the Tower so rather than hunt him down she sends him a message.

 **Me:** _I’ve been sprung_

_See you in a few days_

**The Elder:** _Good_

_Don’t come back_

**Me:** _Ouch_

_Fine_

_Au revoir_

**The Elder:** _Do normal young people things_

_Please_

_I’m not feeling like flying to Massachusetts this week_

**Me:** _Sure_

_I can do normal_

_And what’s wrong with Massachusetts?_

_Think of the foliage_

She has missed how pretty New England is in the fall.

**The Elder:** _You can’t do normal_

_Listen to the goat-boy_

_I can’t believe that made sense_

She can’t believe her father’s the one who said it.

**Me:** _Duh I listen to Grover_

_Love you_

  
  


**The Elder:** _You too kiddo_

Cas should not get as happy as she does when her dad calls her kiddo. It’s even better than when Silena decided she needed her own nickname for Cas(Silena was the only person then or now to refer to Cas as Andy). Whatever. Enjoy the little things.

It’s not exactly difficult to drive from New York to Boston, in fact, with good traffic the drive is around three and half hours. This is obviously for a normal person that obeys traffic laws to the letter. Cas maintains that she could totally get them there in under three however it’s not her car and Grover doesn’t like her driving.

She likes to go fast. Sue her.

Happy was both grateful and offended when Cas handed out passes to enter the employee parking area to Stark Tower. Offended because only some of them actually work there and are therefore not all employees but he saw the merit of knowing when they’re coming and going. They would find a way in anyway so at least this way there’s a record.

This means that when Cas jumps in the back of Percy’s CRV (it’s blue and the interior looks like it belongs to a young adult male with ADHD) there’s no need to hurry like they’re in the way. Her duffle gets tossed on….on something that clanks so it might be spare armor.

“Hey Cas,” Annabeth greets from the driver’s seat.

“Cassie!” Grover waves a half eaten soda can at her.

She gives them a small salute, “Blondie and Goat-boy, are we packed for the journey?” A bag of Doritos hits her in the face which she chooses to interpret as affirmation. Whatever. They’re going on an adventure! As Bilbo Baggins would say.

A short drive later has them switching seats so Grover is in the back with her so Percy can drive.

“Ah yes, just like old times,” Grover says as he gets comfortable and stretches out.

She also settles in for the long haul. He has a point. It’s been a while since it was just them, the remnant of their little family from their childhood. It’s in no way a criticism of the others but Cas’s adventure started with Annabeth and Grover in it. Percy joined a few years in but he’s been a part of her life for longer than he wasn’t so it’s not like it counts.

“Yeah,” She grins, “You and me, Percy and Annabeth, making bets on which will confess they’re in love first,” She sighs, “Good times.”

“Don’t out me like that.”

“Like you don’t have money down on a ring date.”

Percy looks at her in the rearview mirror, “You did not do that.” Cas doesn’t respond but Annabeth…

“Are you surprised?” Star-Girl has a point, “Cas used to bet on how many bones Clarisse would break in a week.” It was other people’s bones not her own. Also, that was shut down by Chiron when he learned about it and looking back Cas can admit that it was too far….she was a teenager and angry.

Now, Percy and Annabeth endure the ribbing they receive from Grover and Cas because who else is going to do it? They’re one of the funniest looking couples out there but they’re ‘intimidating heroes’. Annabeth looks like the definition of a California girl with the height and blonde hair while Percy looks like the bad boy that girls aren’t supposed to bring home. It’s hilarious because people forget when he smiles(or talks or does anything) but Percy has RBF which he claims has scared off gang members. This is unverified so Cas is skeptical because it’s Percy(he has the golden heart of a baby fur seal). However, he does look like the kid every teacher pings as trouble the instant that they walk through the door.

That’s a foregone conclusion.

Jason on the other hand looks like the stereotypical perfect boyfriend/boy scout/blondie boy Clark Kent. That he’s still dating the tomboy vegetarian beauty Piper makes the image even better.

But enough of the Facebook updates.

And back to Cas backseat driving.

“Cas,” Percy’s a bit annoyed, “I am from Manhattan. I can get to I-95 without you navigating.” He can but her way would be better.

It’s been an unforgivably long time since it’s been just the four of them so they take the opportunity to enjoy it. A lot is to serve as a distraction as they skirt through Connecticut as fast as they can. Unfortunately, when traveling with a son of Poseidon, flying is almost never an option but this drive in October is gorgeous.

For the most part the ride is nice and there are no problems.

Then there are moments when the recently released Cas is a little overly enthused to be out and about on a non business related venture.

Never forget that while Cas likes a variety of music, she possesses no musical talent of her own, _“_ _Neunundneunzig Luftballons! Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont, Hielt man für Ufos aus dem All-”_ But that doesn’t mean she won’t have fun when Nena’s playing.

Of course, “Cas, shut up. Please.” Some people (Annabeth) have no sense of taste. The point could also be made that the song is in German and no one actually knows the words, well, she knows what the song’s about but she can’t translate it stanza by stanza.

No matter, good music transcends language, “Let me live my life, Star-Girl!”

“I will turn this car around!” Pshhh...no he won’t. Probably. Percy’s just trying to feel in charge and is relieved of such notions when all three of his passengers hit him with an unimpressed look.

There are some parts of the drive that are more conversation driven. For example, “-but it worked out. I was not expecting that grandma to pull a taser on that telkhein.” Grover shudders as he finishes recounting a tail of investigating a possible demigod report. Evidently this was a real one. That….that’s a new situation.

“Who would make the choice to be a demigod?” Percy speaks for all of them and the car collectively shrugs.

Cas loves herself. She accepts who and what she is. That’s normal and a sign of good mental health. However, if given the option(assuming that no one would be negatively affected by her decision) Cas would stop being a demigod in a heartbeat. 

If given the option most demigods would do the same. Sure, they have cool abilities and they meet some interesting creatures. They also have a terrible life expectancy, are constantly hunted, and live their lives stuck as the coffee intern for the gods.

‘Tis not ideal.

Since her father announced the Charles Beckendorf Foundation and as demigods have come more and more to the foreground, people have been trying to fake it….She understands sort of. Parents want their children to be a special snowflake. Kids are raised to want to be special snowflakes. There’s a ton of money involved if one is a demigod.

Sure, not all demigods have super strength or speed but there’s usually something there.

Sure, your child is pretty talented with that violin or football or backgammon.

But no matter what, there is no fooling a satyr’s nose. After finding a fake, it turns into a frantic lecture on how dangerous it is to falsely claim relations to a god.

They get rather offended(the gods and the lying parent for some reason).

In Grover’s case, it was in fact a child of Notos. It’s interesting because Cas had never met a child of the Anemoi before. The kid is on the wild side but Cas would be too if her father was responsible for sending summer thunderstorms up from the south.

Moving on to her sister who has just recently landed her first internship which she’ll be starting in January, “They just barely let me include my Camp Half-Blood projects in my portfolio,” They’d better. Annabeth put so much work and skill into rebuilding the camp. She understands that it’s too much to ask to include Olympus though, “I think this group may want the secret to building with magic.” Right...

Percy snorts, “Do they think we’re witches?”

“No,” Cas can’t resist, “Yer a wizard, Percy.”

And Percy?

Percy is happy which is more than Cas could have ever imagined for him when they first met. He was a secret child of Poseidon and the second child of the Big Three to turn up in a decade. The first one(Thalia) died young and at first Cas was convinced that would be Percy’s fate too.

But now?

He’s just doing so well.

“Estelle is getting so tall!”

“I led the lost whale out of the bay.”

“They want me to go to Australia with them this summer to see the Great Barrier Reef and we might do Antarctica during winter break.” Look at him. He’s living his life and none of this involves gods and monsters.

Then there are the looks he’s shooting Annabeth that make them both smile and the smally itty bitty detail that they’ve been holding hands for the last hour.

This is why Cas did what she did. She took those risks so that the people she loves could do things like this.

  
  


~~~

They made it to Boston without any sort of mythological encounter which is a miracle. Or maybe not. A year in the open with the Mist weakening and the standard bad guys have to sneak around again instead of imitating humans in broad daylight. Sucks to suck but maybe if they stopped trying to kill people there wouldn’t be an issue.

“What street is it again?” Percy asks when they get close. It’s….okay. They could have one hundred percent used GPS to get there. It’s very true. However, this is supposed to be a throwback nostalgia drive. All of them can read maps and it’s Annabeth’s family home so she knows how to get there anyway.

“Commonwealth Ave, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth says only a little annoyed. She has reason to be since Percy’s been there quite a few times by now.

“Who’s here again?” Thor and friends are staying somewhere else in the city(Is it Beacon Hill? Maybe? Probably.)

“My aunt is here,” Oh nice, “Dad’s home in San Francisco,” Sad face, “Uncle Randolf is out of town,” Thank the gods, she doesn’t like him, “But I think Magnus might be around.” Her cousin? Cool.

“Nice,” Maybe they can snag him for a day or something. He’s an interesting one, “Is your baby cousin still dating that Fierro kid?” This is assuming he wants to and that they have free time.

“I think?” That’s descriptive. Well, he is nineteen. It’s possible Magnus isn’t interested in sharing his lovelife with his cousin. It’s also possible that Annabeth knows more but is respecting his privacy. Eh, not her business anyway.

It is fascinating to Cas that Magnus has a name of both Latin and Norse origin.

Language history is wild and if the thought of yet another alphabet didn’t give her a tension headache Cas would attempt to expand her knowledge past the romance languages. As it stands, she’ll keep trying to pick up Spanish by hanging around the Forges when Nyssa and Leo are in town.

That’s going well since she already speaks French and Latin.

Eventually the street is found and they pull up to the old manse from the olden days of the Revolution (she’s exaggerating). Not that it matters, the Chase’ family is Swedish in origin and came over long before Annabeth’s very famous and unnecessarily glorified brother(the man was great but still human after all). Cas is referring to the first Commander and Chief of the US, and son of Athena, George Washington.

The house is warm and old money gorgeous. It’s also like a godsdamned museum and Cas has the childish feeling to keep her hands in her pockets. Thank the gods that Cas isn’t expected to greet Annabeth’s aunt (Nancy? Nelly? Nathalie?) because they don’t really know each other. Instead Cas gets to let Darcy know that they’re in town.

It’s crazy that Annabeth has this huge family on the mortal side that can all fit inside of this house comfortably but she only started talking to them three years ago…. When everything started happening. She’d like to say 2010 is when her life became insane but that would be a total lie. It was a wild ride before that too.

Another crazy fact, Mr. Chase hadn’t spoken to his siblings for the better part of a decade before Thor crashed into the Earth back in 2010. Wild, Cas can’t imagine going that long without talking to her family.

So that’s another good thing to have come out of this.

Thor’s arrival that day is pretty amazing.

Evidently, he forgot they were coming to today so he flew with Jane and straight up cracked the road. Classic. It’s not like it matters despite the lack of an ‘Asgardian Embassy.’ Putting the first one in America might cause some controversy since they already have Olympus….or at least that’s Cas’s thoughts on the matter. She hasn’t actually looked into it. Anyway, Thor has diplomatic immunity and he has that whole armor and hammer swinging thing going on.

Even if they needed to arrest or confront Thor, police are unlikely too. It’s that old time thinking of ‘is it illegal if the law is unenforced?’ Americans lived by that during the Prohibition, a stupid ruling which was openly routed and ignored in this very city at one time(Good job, Boston).

So Thor’s landing cracks the pavement and rattles a few windows.

The Asgardian has really grown on them. His extended stay on Earth has leveled him out and Darcy’s put her political science degree to work by translating Earth rule of law into Asgardian terms for Thor to understand. He also answers to Point Break, Tinkerbell, and Swayze in equal measure. Jane is less amused by this but she got over it.

Thank the gods for that because the last thing they need is for Thor to get offended and call for a holmgang or something. Fun fact on that historical tidbit, as it happens ancient Greeks did sometimes settle their grievances by fighting each other but the organized arena based way that Greek demigods use has its origins in when Asgard arrived (the second time). The Norse settled some arguments in organized and witnessed duels called holmgangs.

These were considered legally binding and far better than a disputable private duel without an audience. Yes, the Romans had their gladiator fights in arenas but those were for entertainment. The arena duels at Camp Half-Blood have more in common with a holmgang than that(These are used as a last resort only because words are important).

Cas was happy to learn that demigod culture continued to change after the fall of the Roman Empire. 

This is all important but less important than the fact that Thor lands, releases Jane, and then proceeds to yell, “My friends!” At the group when they come outside. Grover bleats a little and stays back while Percy moves in to greet him. It’s not that they’re closer or something like that. It’s that Percy is doing Grover a solid and giving the goat-boy a moment to acclimate.

Cas says, “Hey Jane,” While ignoring Percy wincing when Thor claps him on the shoulder, “How was Puerto Rico?”

She’s learned that the best way to engage Dr. Jane Foster in any kind of conversation is to vaguely reference her work. Other topics can be sprinkled in but for the most part the woman is usually focused on that. She understands. Jane’s research is her life’s work and is probably the biggest reason she gets out of bed in the morning….well….that and her Asgardian.

“It was amazing!” It probably was. Not that Cas would know since she was meeting with the mayor of NYC to discuss possible ways in which certain neighborhoods could be test powered via arc reactor. PSE&G is not exactly happy that Stark Industries is trying to push them out but the US is supposed to have a competitive and open market, “I think that I might be able to use a system like Arecibo Observatory to open the Earth to communications with worlds light years away,” Yeah, Cas would have preferred to go with them, “Thor told me that our closest sentient neighbor is approximately....” She would have much preferred to go with them.

This line of thinking is also trailing close to that line of ‘this should probably be publically accessible information’ but they’ll work on that. That’s why Cas has Legal, PR, and the Queen. 

_Hey Pepper, I’m going to do A, B, and C. Should we tell people about it?_ This method has worked so far.

While Cas walks down that rabbit hole with Jane, Annabeth handles greeting Thor and pulling the arrival time of Dr. Selvig (“I think at this point you can call me Erik.” Yeah….but, “Dr. Selvig, you are the physical embodiment of a professor. It would be weird.”) and Darcy out of him. They’ll get there eventually but in the meantime Jane and Cas are herded indoors neatly by people who know them and don’t even break their concentration.

If Jane wants a space radio dish for Christmas then Cas will try to make something work. There’s probably a way to condense Arecibo without compromising functionality. The thing was built before her father was born (whoa….) and technology has way advanced since then. Improvements can be made.

Eventually, they’re all led inside with the intention of acclimating after an almost four hour drive before they plan to move on to reverse engineering the next item in the Chase Collection.

“This looks a lot like the Soul Forge on Asgard,” The what? “Thor is this a fragment of that or an outdated version.”

Thor looks over the old Chase museum piece methodically with the air of a man trying to look knowledgeable in front of a woman he wants to impress when he really has no idea what he’s talking about, “It’s possible,” Sure it is, Tinkerbell, “Although much of this predates my birth. During my own travels to Earth centuries ago we did not leave much behind.” Just a few more bastards.

However, “What’s a Soul Forge?” Cas needs to know. Can it make a person? Or repair them like what Cas and Helen are on the cusp of doing?

Jane gets that mad genius spark in her eye and Cas is here for it, “It’s a quantum field generator.” Whoa, “They used it as a diagnostic tool on Asgard.” How would that…? That's so cool!

“That’s-We need one. We gotta…” Oh man, this is going to eat up all of her time in Boston. And she was hoping to get Thor to watch The Princess Bride this week...It’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make, “If it could detect the Aether in your system,” She’s using the vernacular because Cas can’t go around calling it the God Catalyst. That’s pretentious, “Then it might detect the traces Malekith picked up in me,” Cas grins at the rest of the room but no one seems to get it.

“You could potentially find other demigods with it,” Jane says after a thoughtful pause.

That she could, “I want it.” Badly. “Obviously, we’d have to be very careful because if this fell into the wrong hands….” Elias, Nero, and various other sundry villains and disreputable people would hunt down baby demigods.

That is the exact opposite of Cas’s intent. If she can make it handheld or even just portable then the teams that seek out demigods wouldn’t be limited to available satyrs. She’s felt a little bad about taking up so much of their time since they’re also trying to reestablish the Wilds or at least begin their recovery after the loss of Pan. This way a satyr wouldn’t be required every time.

One can easily imagine how Cas spends all of Tuesday and part of Wednesday.

Sleep is optional because she can nap during the drive to Salem.

There is one thing that breaks her stride on Tuesday during the mandated food break. It’s not that this was unexpected. In fact, Cas expected backlash a whole lot sooner. Still that image in the news…

It’s not offensive(well, it is) or derogatory but it’s precisely the kind of thinking that puts Cas on her toes and raises the metaphorical hackles.

An image appears on the news in reference to a series of(small but still present) protests that have hit the more….conservative states. It’s a line of pictures of children and underneath the images is the caption ‘One of these is a Half-Olympian’ and ‘Do you know who your children are playing with?’ It’s followed by….It’s followed by an idea to register them.

This was during lunch too….And this kitchen is so fancy and nice. The sandwich in Cas's hand is delicious and she sends her compliments to the chef but....

“Jarvis, what is this?”

 _“Bad television, miss.”_ Very true but there’s a lot of slack jawed people looking at a television right now even if Thor is standing there awaiting explanation.

“Jarvis, when did this start?”

 _“It’s a small media campaign originating from Utah around three months ago,”_ Of course it is, _“Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts have already tasked Ms. Allard and her PR team with informing the public and discrediting false information.”_

Gods….this is scary and she knows she’s not over reacting when she looks around the room to see Thor’s face sour as Dr. Selvig explains the issue. No one is comfortable with this.

It’s Darcy that lightens the mood though, “It’s not like this news agency took it seriously. They’re just watching it develop.” Yeah, but they’re in a state that’s been considered liberal for years. No one has any response to Darcy’s attempt at positivity.

“Why wasn’t I brought in on this, J?”

 _“Mr. Stark wanted you focused on the New York reactor deal,”_ That’s a crap answer, _“And Ms. Potts believed it might send a message if it was baseline humans defending the demigods.”_

Fine….she should have been informed though. Hades, Chiron probably knows about this too but for whatever reason he chose not to tell her. California is way closer to Utah so New Rome probably knows what's happening....Actually, that's wrong. One, they're in California. So...yeah.

Also, New Rome is getting better but they're still fairly insular.

Okay….Cas is supposed to be off work until she gets back home so….back to science and then Salem and witches. This will still be there when she gets back to New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for the registration is taken from Marvel comics and the Mutant Registration Act.
> 
> You can imagine how well that went in the books but they used similar propaganda to what I described during its run in the comics.
> 
> If it sounds vaguely yellow star then you would technically be correct because that was the inspiration that the Jewish creators pulled from.


	27. The Joke's (Not) on Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These wacky adventures brought to you by Cas and Co. just wanting to be normal for a few days.
> 
> They're of course not normal in the slightest but they can try.
> 
> Also, for the people interested in history: Proctor's Ledge was confirmed as the site of nineteen executions in 2016. A memorial was put up I think a year later on some land that Salem bought along the road. Unfortunately, they couldn't get the exact plot where the women died because that really is a backyard with a view of a Walgreens.

Under normal circumstances the drive to Salem should have been roughly half an hour. The problem is that Cas got distracted trying to reverse engineer an antique piece of Asgardian medical equipment without any form of instructions. They have a vague idea of how it’s supposed to work to duplicate the molecular energy of a stationary body so that it can be manipulated and observed(That’s one way to beat the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).

Anyway, they hit traffic which elongated their drive to an hour (worth it) not that Cas notices because she sleeps and the group lets her. It’s probably so that Cas cannot comment on the traffic and get creative in trying to escape it.

Fair enough.

When they arrive at their destination though…. “Wake up, Cas!” She catches one of those little travel coolers with her stomach courtesy of Percy.

“Oof,” It knocks the wind out of her which is about as much passive aggressive annoyance as Percy is capable of displaying, “I’m up, Nemo.” She also takes the Starbucks mocha latte out of said cooler and downs it. This doesn’t count as coffee. It’s mostly sugar but it’ll ensure that she’s awake enough for check in which will be interesting.

This town is a hot tourist trap right now. There are crowds here and reservations were made at the local inns months in advance just for Halloween. The spookier and the more haunted the better. Unfortunately, Cas, Percy, and Annabeth have some uncommon and dare she say famous names.

Grover doesn’t. It’s all been done in his name and they’re grateful for his sacrifice. If Cas had done it someone would have leaked she was coming weeks ago and then they would’ve had to cancel because stalkers do not a fun vacation make. The same was possible for Percy and Annabeth.

However, it all worked out and they park near The Merchant hotel where they’ll be staying for the next several days. Why this hotel and not any of the others? Cas went all in on the experience. It was built in the 1780s after the witch trial period but the property has a special history to go along with it. 

In the late seventeenth century it was a jail. Sheriff Corwin( _ that _ Corwin) used to keep the suspected witches there and he believed in being hands on so he did his own ‘interrogations.’ Please keep in mind that this is pre-Geneva Convention and these people believed that drowning women proved they were innocent of witchcraft. So….yeah.

Also, it’s where he performed quite a few executions….isn’t that a cozy thought to fall asleep to. 

“Why are we doing this again?” Annabeth is pretending to be recalcitrant but her illustrious brother George stayed here in 1789. She’s by no means a fangirl but still, family history and all that.

“What’s the problem?” Grover actually is hesitant, “Is staying in a haunted hotel too much for you?” He’s being very brave given his own personal reservations.

The look Annabeth hits him with has Grover straightening his spine though because let's be honest a haunted hotel is nothing to this group, “This is so gimmicky. I bet most of the time it’s just drunk people existing in an old drafty house.” Yes, but it’s the experience. This is the most normal dumb trip Cas has ever taken and it’s so fun. The closest Cas has come to a ghost is a Lare which is sort of the same concept(?). They’re Roman house gods which are minor gods formed from deceased family members. They’ re protectors of specific families.

Percy agrees since most of his vacations were to that one house in Montauk, “So? I kind of want to visit that Giles Corey guy from the Crucible.”

“Heck yes, Percy,” Cas grins as she steps out of the car, “More weight! That guy’s a legend. He was like eighty when he died too.” He was tortured to death horrifically but the evidence suggests that his means of execution began to sour the populace against the witch trials. In a way, he may have saved people through his own suffering which is a good way to go out.

Being slowly crushed to death by rocks over a period of three days is still the height of cruelty though. Doubly so since he was never actually convicted of witchcraft. He never even pleaded not guilty because the moment he did he could be formally charged by Salem with witchcraft. Once that happened all of his land would’ve been seized by the Sheriff. In standing his ground and allowing himself to be killed Mr. Corey guaranteed that his farm went to his family after his death.

Old person stubbornness or loyalty? The world may never know.

She gets to work pulling their luggage out of the trunk with Percy while Annabeth and Grover head inside, “You know,” He says as he drops his own beaten up backpack on the ground, “I’m really excited about this. When’s the last time we traveled somewhere without a godly reason to go there.”

Cas is content to answer, “Never,” She smiles a little sadly because this trip is closest in similarity to Annabeth’s thirteenth birthday. Luke and Cas set up a Coney Island trip for her but everything went downhill fast after that summer, “This is a good thing.”

“Yeah,” Percy says as he throws his and Annabeth’s bag over his shoulder, “This is not where I saw my life going ten years ago.”

Ha. Cas picks up Grover’s and her bags, “Ten years ago this is what I dreamed I’d be doing.”

“Spending Halloween in Massachusetts?”

This boy thinks he’s funny, “No, just hanging out in the open. Is that weird?” They make it to the front doors and Cas hopes that her MIT hoodie and leggings paired with a messy bun are enough of a disguise. It’s not like anyone is expecting her to be there and people are used to Cas dressing a certain way(hint: it’s not comfort clothes).

“No?” Percy sounds so confident as he pulls the door open for both of them. Wow, this is a pretty building. The lobby is jewel toned blue and everything is bright. She likes it, “But I think you get a pass either way.” That’s fair.

The concierge is already talking to Grover and Annabeth who are committed to being stupid college students going ghost hunting. Annabeth might be a sceptic but she sees the appeal of their anonymity. She’s loudly chewing gum while looking at pamphlets and Grover is asking questions about the best spots to hit to search for the paranormal. It’s so obviously a normal part of the lady’s job description because that smile looks painful and she’s just nodding along and putting their info in for their rooms as fast as possible(Two rooms but in one….there’s only one bed. Scandalous).

Grover’s making a point to ask about tours and things but Cas just has to add in, “Is there a map for the Hocus Pocus movie sites? Because that’s a must.” Cas may have started her pop culture journey in the early 2000s but she considers herself a child of the 90s. She just had a late start.

“That’s self guide only. You’ll have to use Google,” The sharply dressed and exasperated woman named Emma based off of her name tag doesn’t even look up at them, “Unfortunately the Washington room was already booked but your rooms are next to each other on the second floor.” Too bad but whatever, they’re only sleeping there.

“Are they haunted?” Percy asks in a completely serious tone and that makes ‘Emma the annoyed concierge’ look up at them.

There’s zero recognition on her face as she gives them a stage smile, “You’ll just have to find out yourselves.” Cas’ll leave the poor woman alone. She doesn’t need to deal with more irritating tourists. Instead she’ll make sure that Emma gets a good review for dealing with them so well and she’ll get a tip for her patience.

This building is old and as such it has those old colonial style dimensions. Long story short, the stairs are a claustrophobes nightmare and the doorways are too low for Percy. Annabeth just barely clears it. “This house makes me feel tall,” Cas says as she makes her way down the hall towards their rooms.

No one says anything in response so Cas is forced to accept that it wasn’t all that funny.

Whatever.

She happily faceplants on the bed closest to the door. Old habits die hard and Grover is more combat support than frontliner. The hotel is probably safe but this is smarter.

They give each other an hour to decompress from travel and locate all necessary supplies from their luggage. This group is composed of old pros at packing so it’s not difficult. Once she’s done Cas lays down to nap or she would have but ten minutes in and Grover is bothering her.

“Your phone keeps going off,” Ugh...why? Everyone that matters knows where Cas is right now, “Messages from Horse-Boy?” Huh? Why is he contacting her? Of all of the Shield people that Cas has met Coulson is the one she tolerates the most. He’s a bit of a history buff for heroes which is entertaining but he’s still Shield(And a fanboy. Seriously... “How accurate are modern retellings of the Odyssey?”), “He’s requesting your insight on an upcoming project.” Grover says with his nose in the air in response to her continued silence and the lack of comprehension on her face.

Oh! That rings a bell, “Hey Jarvis,” Cas presses a hand to her ear to confirm her earpiece didn’t fall out. She should come up with a better method for doing this that doesn’t involve raming something into her ear….that’s for later.

_ “Yes miss?”  _ Her ever present and dear little brother says.

“Do me a favor and upload the Shield approved files on the Aegis Matrix,” That should get them off her back, “Dad went through all the trouble of improving their engines so I should make sure an arrow can’t explode them again.” It’s not as powerful as an energy barrier hooked up to the Tesseract or even an Arc Reactor (Nope, Shield can’t have one.) but it’s still impressive.

_ “Of course,”  _ He says indulgently,  _ “I’m certain that there is no backdoor available to subvert the protections that the Aegis Matrix provides.” _

Eh, “As long as they use it responsibly there’s no issue.” Her father taught her that if she’s going to give someone a tool then she needs to make sure it’s used properly, “Thanks for checking my messages, G-Man.” 

Grover sighs from across the room, “Can you not call me that?”

She could but it’s a sign of affection and care.

~~~

So Halloween is incredible.

The costumes are hilarious, flattering, and inaccurate for the most part. Although that one man that dressed as her father must have put easily three hundred dollars into that Iron Man costume. The ‘Arc Reactor’ looks beautiful. 

AND SOMEONE DRESSED AS HER.

There’s a little girl walking around with a little plastic spear and Cas is just so here for it. The costumes were for the market, parade, and Trick-or-Treat stuff. 

They also had the opportunity to sit in on a Witch Trial reenactment as members of the jury...

It was very awkward given demigod history and highly disconcerting(this was no one’s favorite part). The absurd quantities of candy available everywhere were pretty awesome though.

They had dinner at a themed restaurant and it was almost perfect. Salem is a coastal town in New England which means there’s lobster everywhere. Cas was really looking forward to ordering some because this is about as fresh as it gets but Annabeth stops her.

“Cas, you can’t order the lobster.”

She’s understandably confused, “What? Why not?” Rather than say anything further, Annabeth nods towards Percy who’s slumped dejectedly facing the lobster tank. The purpose is for the customer to choose which lobster they wish to devour. He looks sad, “Dammit. But they taste so good.” He’ll continue looking sad if she eats it in front of him.

“I know,” Annabeth pats her on the shoulder, “Thanks Cas.”

Whatever. Now Cas can’t focus on the menu to pick something else and her eyes are drawn to the tank constantly. A glance at Percy tells her the same thing. Grover is used to this sort of situation and he’ll probably get a salad or a grilled cheese sandwich. Cas’ll just get a burger or something and plans to order that along with the nachos for four(which she has no intention of sharing). However, when the waiter comes back around something else comes out of Cas’s mouth, “I’ll take all of the lobsters.” Dammit.

Percy’s head snaps to hers but Cas resolutely focuses on the waiter, “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me,” Next to her Grover sighs, “I’ll pay full price for the meals but I want the lobsters. All of them….and a cooler.” Percy had better remember this in the future.

“That’s-” Poor waiter man.

“For dinner, I’d like a cheeseburger with waffle fries. Also, a plate of nachos.”

The poor man looks like his eyes are about to bug out of his head, “There’s a limit to how much lobster each table can order.” Okay, that’s a reasonable rule but Cas is now committed.

“Tell the manager that I’ll pay for my meal and double the price of each lobster meal if you give them all to me...alive obviously.” The waiter scurries away without taking any of the other orders. Grover slouches in his seat and starts picking at his napkin while Annabeth crosses her arms.

Percy looks elated, “Thanks Cassie.”

“Yeah whatever,” Gods, she's so soft, “We’ll release them later and you need to make sure they aren’t caught again.”

“Totally, they’ll get directions to head somewhere safer,” How safe the ocean can be for the tasty crustaceans is another conversation entirely….but more to the point, how much can a lobster comprehend? Not her department, that’s Percy’s job;

Cas pays a significant fee for the humane release of the lobsters and proceeds to act as a lookout while Percy and Grover free them at the edge of the wharf. While that’s happening she turns to Annabeth and says, “How can he eat cow but not seafood?”

“He eats seafood but he doesn’t want to meet it before dinner,” Annabeth replies and Cas concedes it’s a reasonable demand from Aqualad. The burger was unimpressive but at least the nachos were good so it’s not like dinner was ruined by Percy being influenced by his Poseidon child status and his empathy link with Grover.

Now here’s the deal for Halloween night. This is probably a horrible life decision because Cas is not supposed to go looking for danger but she’s twenty four. She’s twenty four, Grover’s thirty three, and the love birds are twenty two.

They want to do some stupid young adult shit and it’s Halloween.

….they choose to be the idiots in a horror movie for just one night except they all kick ass. If anything attacks them then they totally have it covered.

In Salem, Massachusetts, on Halloween night there is only one way to act like the idiots in a horror movie.

They must search for ghosts at Gallows Hill. Where else but the site of the majority of witch executions? It’s not like they’re going to break into someone’s home or a museum to hunt ghosts for kicks. Nah, the location of their unjust deaths will do just fine. The area is small too so it’s not like it’ll take long.

Salem is a classy historic town so it’s doubtful that they want people wandering around at night like they’re about to but….honestly what are they going to do? They don’t mean any harm. It’s just a late night walk with the distinct possibility of talking at the air.

And so it goes that at eleven o’clock eastern standard time four people(Three demigods and one satyr) exited the Merchant hotel and made their way towards 7 Pope Street. Actually, they drive because it’s only five minutes that way.

“Are we sure that this is a good idea?” Grover says after they already left. It’s a little late to change his mind.

“Yep,” Is the only answer Cas provides.

Annabeth is more willing to provide elaboration, “This is as good an opportunity as any to prove that ghosts don’t exist,” Buzzkill. Cas shares an eye roll with Percy, “Thanatos wouldn’t leave mortal souls floating around to hide from their punishment or reward.” Most of these people didn’t do much with themselves so they’re probably in the fields of Asphodel.

While Annabeth presents a valid point, “Other cultures have ghosts, Star-Girl.” There’s more than just Hades’s kingdom out there.

“Other cultures have merit based reward systems for the afterlife, Cas.” Also true, Cas turns to face Annabeth more directly so that they can actually have this conversation.

Percy isn’t having it, “Can we not do the soul debate right now?” It’s a perfect time to have this conversation. The atmosphere is perfect, “We’re here for the paranormal activity. Normal stuff.” The normalcy of looking for ghosts is debatable but….she’ll let it go.

Mostly because they’ve made it to their destination.

It’s both underwhelming and overwhelming. Underwhelming due to the fact that it’s just a few backyards and a Walgreens parking lot. It’s overwhelming for the exact same reason. The confirmation that it was at the base of Gallows Hill (known as Proctor’s Ledge) is a relatively recent historical belief but no one’s proven it yet. Obviously over time people built here and even put up a Walgreens but at the same time ....At the same time people forgot where nineteen women were executed for witchcraft.

Percy pulls in to park at the Walgreens and suddenly Cas isn’t feeling as in favor of this as she was when they left. Not because she’s afraid but because it feels sort of disrespectful. These women were murdered, “This is where it happened?” Annabeth says from the passenger seat.

And yeah….there’s speculation but most people believe that the hangings occurred at the summit of the hill. Chiron visited back in the day because he wanted to see what they were doing for himself. This was when Olympus was still over London but he had adventurous students who wanted to see the New World.

Of course he checked it out so that he could advise them. 

When he came originally there were still gallows set up.

The point is most people assume that the executions are at the top of the hill but upon further reflection that makes no sense. They considered these women the servants of Satan so why would they bother with going and setting up on top of the hill? They wanted the process to be as expedient as possible.

But still, “This is really….depressing.” Percy hits the nail on the head. He still cuts the engine though.

“Humans are really bad at recording history,” She says in an attempt to excuse the apparent apathy. She knows that Salem takes its history very seriously. It’s why there’s so many museums. It’s why they never renamed the area even though Gallows Hill leaves a bad taste in the mouth….but a Walgreens? They couldn’t even build a local small business pharmacy here, it had to be a big corporate chain one.

“Is it bad that I find it reassuring to see you’re just as bad to each other as you are to the Wilds?” Grover helpfully adds. Cas doesn’t answer and neither do Annabeth and Percy. They just let that float on by.

Cas is about to try and call a quits to this whole envour because she no longer has the desire to try and speak with Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, and the others. There was never any expectation that they would be there anyway and this just seems wrong. Ghost hunting where they died...gods, what was she thinking?

She really was about to talk Percy into driving away when, “Sarah Good!” A loud, raucous, and slurred voice yells. It leads her to open a window instead, “Hey! Witchy bitch Sabrina come out!” 

A few more voices join the shouting for others from the list of dead attributed the executions somewhere in the area. Low and behold, a group of five comes stumbling and laughing out of the woods. There’s three men and two women. It’s too dark to make out any further details….is that what she was trying to imitate tonight?

One of the girls trips and nearly faceplants into pavement….This was a decision made in grave error but there’s an opportunity to make up for it.

There’s a few more statements made by the drunken All Hallow’s Eve revelers that are clearly intended to get a rise out of the ghosts...or just because. Cas isn’t sure why drunk people do what they do.

However, “Anybody feeling Christmas Carol tactics?” There has to be something she can do to make up for this very botched idea. She never intended to disrespect the dead and maybe if it didn’t feel like these women were forgotten or at the very least tossed to the periphery then maybe she would’ve asked a few questions. Maybe recorded it and tried to get a spirit to do something.

In the face of the drunken moron asking if Rebecca felt it when her neck snapped and if she hates the town in response well…

Cas spent eight years as a part time resident of the Hermes cabin and this just screams of perfect prank material. 

Now what would a woman from 1690s New England sound like? Probably English(Plymouth? What’s that sound like….probably not something they can imitate but they’re convincing drunk people so...eh.)….which means Cas isn’t doing the talking. She turns to Annabeth instead who rolls her eyes but opens the passenger door anyway, “This had better be worth the effort, Cas.”

Percy and Grover hop out too leaving Cas as the last to exit the vehicle. Grover observes the woods across from them that are currently hosting the drunk crew. They somehow haven’t been noticed yet but it is dark, “I think those trees lead to back yards.” Cas nods in agreement. Looks like they’ll have to avoid disturbing the peace when they have their fun(Trick or Treat...and they already had candy).

“So, what are we doing?” Percy asks while glancing between the co-conspirators.

“Percy and Grover,” Cas cracks her knuckles and grins. This is such a good use of her mind, “Throw rocks and make spooky noises. Set the stage. Star-Girl?” Annabeth turns to look at Cas, “How’s your Shakespeare?” It’s been awhile since Cas read any of the Bard’s works but a Midsummer Night’s Dream holds a special place in her heart.

However, “Macbeth’s Moirai?” Yep, that brilliant sunshine child wrote the Fates in as the Weird Sisters. Macbeth is far better suited to this scenario.

Cas nods, “Sprinkle some first act and whatever else you remember.” Everyone remembers that first scene because witches were not expected in what was described to Cas as a political thriller. Also, in the grand scheme of things it seems odd that Greek demigods-often allergic to the classical latin alphabet- would read Shakespeare. The kicker? Iambic pentameter.

Even if they read the word wrong at first pass they have a better chance of catching it if the letter swap muddles the emphasis and consequently the line’s rhythm. It’s a good method of practicing reading(That’s what Chiron says anyway and there's a part of Cas that’s convinced it’s a conspiracy.).

It’s not foolproof but it helps...sort of. The Apollo kids don’t mind since he’s their brother. The downside is that iambic pentameter also makes the lines easier to memorize and get stuck in one’s head.

“What’re you going to do?” Grover says and Cas grins.

She takes off at a jog towards the tree line carefully, “Shock factor.” The sad part is that Cas has to fight the urge to snicker like a school child. It’s been too long since she got into trouble with the Stoll brothers. Speaking of, they got into accounting(Hermes does cover trade wealth and commerce so….) which is both concerning and surprising but more on that another time.

These people are so drunk because they do not notice Cas hit the treeline maybe fifty feet to their right followed closely by Annabeth. Oh, this is going to be so beautiful. She continues forward around twenty feet and then arcs to the left to come up behind them.

Someone shrieks and Cas assumes that Percy and Grover have started their fun, “Who’s there?” A ‘brave’ male shouts sounding suddenly much more sober causing Cas to laugh quietly into her hand.

Annabeth puts a hand on her shoulder, “Before I put my hat on,” Of course she brought it, “What are you actually doing?”

“Jamie Lee Curtis, the scream queen,” She says while moving ever closer to the increasingly terrified group inching themselves towards the street. There’s a rustle behind her and then to her left as Annabeth passes Cas when she crouches and takes a deep breath. Then she unleashes her rendition of a blood curdling scream of terror towards the parking lot.

It’s uncomfortable and she’ll need some water after this but the result? It’s like a domino effect and the parking lot group starts to scream too. Annabeth must be trailing after them because Cas can just hear, “I come, Graymalkin!” Followed by, “‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.” It’s just two short and easily remembered lines but their audience doesn’t know that.

Now Cas is no expert but she’s pretty sure that second part can be paraphrased to, “‘Get out of here, witch!’ The shit-eating mangy thing yells.” Gods, Shakespeare was talented in the art of prose.

The combination proves to be too much for Cas who starts laughing when the group hits the street and continues on foot. Hopefully, they don’t leave anything important behind. She calms down enough to make it back to Percy and Grover who are also laughing. This is mean. It’s really mean but like….Cas can’t remember the last time she really messed with someone just because and it’s Halloween.

Annabeth appears next to Percy with a smile on her face. The only time she ever really fell into these shenanigans was when Cas dragged her in so she’s probably missed it too, “Gods, that was almost as good as the owl in the Ares cabin.” Oh yeah, good times.

“You did what?” Percy stops laughing to say.

“It wasn’t really an owl,” Cas is quick to defend them, “It was pretty much a soundbite tied to a little figurine Charlie made. We hid it in the Ares cabin the night before a Capture the Flag game.”

Percy looks between the both of them and just shakes his head. It was in fact evil and Cas can admit that now but they’d lost the previous two matches which was not okay. Next to them Grover abruptly stiffens and then sniffs at the air, “Did you guys hear that?”

Ummm….Cas knows that she’s going to regret this but, “Hear what?”

He stiffens again, “No one else heard that?” Queue round of confused glances in the dark with their backs to the woods. Cas doesn’t think they’re in danger but Grover jumps one more time, “Okay I definitely heard a ‘thank you’ that time.” Huh...well then.

Percy raises a hand, “I vote we leave.”

“Seconded.”

“Yep.”

“Uh-huh.”

They don’t run back to the car but it’s a brisk walk through the brisk October air.

~~~

So nothing has tried to kill them for the entirety of their stay in Salem. Also, no one recognized any of them which is great.

However, in the morning while Cas is eating waffles, Chiron calls but this time the call is not for her.

It’s for Grover, “Hello Chiron,” He says while almost eating a fork in the dining room. He tries to avoid eating utensils in public, “Need something?” All’s well until he drops the fork, “Uh, where is he?” There’s a pause but then he says, “Rhode Island? That is close. Yeah, I’ll ask. Let me call you back.” He hangs up and looks down at his plate before explaining to the three demigods that are not so subtly staring, “Suspected demigod in Providence. The mother has no idea who the father is really but the kid is….it’s possible.”

“Disruptive and twitchy?”

“Gifted?”

“Weird?”

Three different people gave those responses but let’s leave up to the audience to assign ownership to those statements.

“Yes,” Grove says in response, “So….second road trip.” It could be a fake but Cas isn’t going to risk it.

There’s agreement around the table and they plan their new route. They’ll use GPS this time to guarantee the fastest drive.

This could be fun. Cas hasn’t gone to find a new demigod in a really long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transcript from Interview with Cassandra Stark: June 10, 2012
> 
> Interviewer: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, Dr. Stark.
> 
> Stark: Not a problem, I'm happy to be here.
> 
> Interviewer: Still, I imagine you've been very busy as of late.
> 
> Stark: You could say that.
> 
> Interviewer: Right, I was hoping that you would give me more than that.
> 
> Stark: [Awkward laugh] There's really not a lot more to say about that. We've already done the press about aliens and demigods so...[She shrugs] Don't know what else to tell you.
> 
> Interviewer: How about any updates on the recovery from the attack?
> 
> Stark: Uhhh....okay. Let's see....I'm told that the disaster relief fund should be getting a boost from the federal government. Donations have been amazing and the really the entire planet has contributed at this point and of course New Yorkers [Note: Dr. Stark grins here]. The amount of people who have stepped forward to bring those little every day supplies for their displaced neighbors is really something to see but that's not for me to talk about. You can go outside and see all that for yourself. Actually, you really should.
> 
> Interviewer: Maybe later....Now this is something you've been tight lipped about.
> 
> Stark: Should I be worried?
> 
> Interviewer: No, no, not at all but I was hoping to ask you a few questions on gods.
> 
> Stark: You can ask but no promises about my answers.
> 
> Interviewer: Good enough! I just want to confirm. All of the Greek and Roman gods are real?
> 
> Stark: Mhmm
> 
> Interviewer: What about the others?
> 
> Stark: Excuse me?
> 
> Interviewer: You know Egypt, India, Japan. Those other mythologies.
> 
> Stark: [Pause] I don't know that mythology is good word to use here....
> 
> Interviewer: Why not?
> 
> Stark: Well, myths are just myths. Like Atlantis isn't real but-and I assume you're referring to Hinduism when you say India-those are actual faiths and belief systems. Hinduism is still openly practiced and so is Shinto. They exist and so do the ancient Egyptian gods.
> 
> Interviewer: All of them? Are there demigods there too?
> 
> Stark: I don't know. I follow one pantheon. That's enough gods for me.
> 
> Interviewer: Some people have been suggesting that god isn't the correct word for the Olympians.
> 
> Stark: You don't say. 
> 
> Interviewer: Considering that Asgard is a location in space some people might think-
> 
> Stark: And they'd be wrong. Olympus has existed on Earth since it came into being thousands of years ago. You and your baseline human ancestors made them gods. Your ancestors named them. No take backs.
> 
> Interviewer: It's not like they knew any better.
> 
> Stark: I disagree. Ancient doesn't mean stupid. They built structures and wrote plays that still exist today. That's talent. I think they knew exactly what they were doing.


	28. Everything Goes About as Well as Expected

Cas doesn’t like to attribute anything she’s achieved in her life to luck. She’s a child of Nike not Tyche. That being said, Cas is an extraordinarily lucky demigod because she has so much family despite having lost so much. Here she is with this ragtag little group driving down I-95 S (Percy’s driving) and jamming out to Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root with a smile on her face.

It’s kind of perfect. This is a beautiful view at the start of November and it’s warm enough for the windows to be open.

Grover is relating the known information about this demigod, “The mother said he tends to just know things.”

“Knows things?” Annabeth asks with the air of a non-believer.

“Before they happen,” He continues, “Mostly dreams and feelings.”

Feelings…. “How old is this kid?” Cas tunes in to the conversation instead of the sound system.

“He’s ten,” Oh joy, then he’s all set to be Little Harley’s future friend. The Hephaestus child used to be eight and adorable but went and turned into a preteen….a preteen that’s been exposed to social media since before he hit double digits. Gods, the monster Cas created is terrifying.

“So another of Apollo’s little rugrats then?” Seems pretty cut and dry in Cas’s eyes….but Apollo told Chiron where all of his other children are. She never got an exact number but Cas is fairly certain that there’s multiple.

Chiron already contacted all of those families and they’re all set to go(Apollo’s going to have at least one kid in every grade K-12 for the next five years guaranteed), “Did he forget one?” Percy adds and now Cas is possibly comparing Apollo to the parents in Home Alone.

That doesn’t feel right….

It can’t be that cut and dry.

She doesn’t want to believe that Apollo would regress from engaging with his children and other demigods so soon but the zombie emperors were the third time he’d been turned mortal. This implies that he’s been humbled twice but returned to his old habits. It’s just….she likes the god but it’s not a good track record.

“I don’t think so,” Annabeth says finally, “Apollo’s never been one to pass on a chance to claim his kids and there's no chance he could ever be with a mortal without proclaiming who he is.” That’s a valid argument. Apollo is loud and never subtle.

“Maybe one of his grandchildren?” Grover chimes in, “Aristaeus has a few kids,” Ah yes, Leonardo Da Vinci’s dad, “And so does Asclepius.”

“Hmmm…,” It’s possible but, “It’s not very common for the grandkids to get the grandparent’s abilities.”

“Frank has his skills from my dad,” Percy says which is totally not helpful in any way, shape, or form.

Cas sighs in her seat, “Yes, we all know that Frank is overpowered.” Seriously, the boy isn’t even bound to his little kindling matchstick anymore. This isn’t particularly important in comparison to actually finding the kid but if possible it’s better to figure out the godly parent beforehand. 

If the godly parent has any enemies in particular it’s important to note and avoid them when transporting the baby demigod. For example, children of Athena are at a higher risk of attracting large angry spiders while children of Hephaestus are more likely to clash with telkheins. Percys are at a high risk of attracting Minotaurs.

It just makes the job of helping the baby demigod easier if they know what they’re walking into.

“Oh gods,” The sudden braking has Cas grabbing on to the handle over the doors, “Sorry guys,” Percy says like that’s a sufficient explanation for sharply decelerating on an empty interstate. This never happens. It’s providence for their trip to Providence, “County Sheriff’s Office,” Ah, “Police have never liked me.” Accurate.

But seriously?

“Percy,” Oh….Annabeth used his name! “They’re not going to leave the station just because you drove five miles per hour over the speed limit.” Well, with their collective demigodness all in one car it’s a distinct possibility.

Regardless, they continue on without any police interference and pass exit 16 B to Westwood, MA. Grover takes the opportunity to laugh at Percy’s respect for authority while Annabeth continues talking, “It’s like you always say Percy. You’re the good kid.” Yes, this is the boy who decapitated Medusa and mailed the head to Olmypus.

What kind of a human would ever accuse Perseus Jackson of disrespecting authority?

“I’ve never had any problems at Stony Brook,” He defends himself, “They think I’m great.”

“They’re part scientist and you advanced their studies by years in just a few semesters,” Annabeth doesn’t let up, “They’re biased.”

The look Percy gives Annabeth translates to ‘You’re not?’ which is fair. Annabeth is biased in a way that would tear anyone apart for coming after Percy like this. She’s allowed because she’s the girlfriend(Fiance soon? Hopefully not. Cas needs them to hold off for a couple more years to win the pot.)

Cas leans forward to give her own response to Percy’s quick break actions which caused Grover to fumble his Mountain Dew all over Cas(Gross but at least it’s a nearly clear beverage). She doesn’t get to voice her witty one liner after drying herself somewhat with napkins because something else creeps up her spine and shrieks in her ear:

_ DANGER! _

In a car with people that have been on Cas’s protect list since she was a teenager her reaction time is pretty damn good. Honestly, it falls into the category of preternatural. 

In this instance, Cas acts first and the details can be sorted out after.

“Get off the road!” She shouts as she throws herself into Percy’s space and yanks the steering wheel to the left(Thank the gods that she sat behind him). The benefit of being in a car with veteran demigods and a satyr is that they’re scarcely seconds behind her in this scenario and their trust is absolute.

Percy’s loyal CRV veers off the road and roughly down the embankment towards the copse of trees on the eastern side. As the tires hit dirt instead of pavement a blast rocks the car throwing Cas back into her seat much to her irritation. That could also be due the shattered rear window.

“Hold on!” Percy yells as he slams the breaks but it doesn’t do much when the car overbalances and pitches sideways. Gravity and the slope roll the car leaving them upside down and disoriented but not stunned, “Everyone okay?”

_ MOVE!MOVE!MOVE! _

Well, that’s currently happening. There’s a scratch on her face judginging by the wet sticky feeling, “Cas, what was that?” Grover asks from where he’s pulling on his seat belt.

“No idea,” Cas’s eye’s dart around the car, “Annabeth?”

“I’m fine,” Annabeth replies immediately as she braces one arm on the ceiling(now floor) and works on the seatbelt with the other.

Cas summons and then immediately drops her spear for a convenient escape route. It’s an insignificant jump even with every instinct screaming at her, “We need to get out of here.” She lands on her ass with her legs on the door side and starts kicking, “Sorry Percy but something’s wrong.” The door doesn’t put up much of a fight.

“My car is totaled. I noticed,” Is his only response. He’s aggravated about more than just his car though. They’re all here too and Percy doesn’t like his people being targets of...whatever just happened.

There’s three thumps in close succession as the others drop from their seats,  _ “Miss, you have experienced a car crash. The authorities have been notified and Mr. Stark is enroute.” _ The amazing Jarvis trills out from her (cracked...dammit) phone. Good news, she relates that to the rest of the car and finally succeeds in kicking the crushed door open. She’s the first one to slide out and turns to grab Grover’s hand. He’s pulled out behind her.

From the sound of even more glass breaking, Annabeth and Percy have chosen to go out through the windscreen.

The four of them crawl out into the browning grass and damp autumnal leaves but don’t stray from the scant cover that the wrecked car provides, “Did anyone see what caused that explosion?” Annabeth says while wiping a cut on her face with her hoodie.

Everyone shakes their head but Cas raises a finger -  _ listen - _ there’s something, “You guys hear that?”

“Just the ringing in my ears from the death of my car,” Percy says and Cas is going to need to get him a new car after this. Something tells her that the blame for this experience leads back to her.

But that’s not what she meant, “No….” There’s an engine coming, a loud one, but it stops a while off and at the top of the embankment meaning Cas can’t see anything. 

When Cas worked with the Avengers to fight the Chitauri it went surprisingly well, however, in comparison to any situation with one of her people it was a monumental failure to communicate. Demigod, satyr, or nymph, there’s an understanding that doesn’t require too many words. Time and experience do that.

So all Cas has to do is nod towards the back of the dearly departed CRV and move towards it at a crouch for Percy to automatically move to watch her shoulder while Annabeth (she always has her hat) pulls her hat from her hoodie pocket and moves towards the front.

_ DANGER! _

Oh and that hasn’t stopped. If anything it’s getting louder….she hasn’t felt this much of a threat since alien attack numero dos. So shit.

Cas reaches back with one hand and latches onto Percy’s wrist. It’ll give him the leverage to pull her back and throw his watch shield in front of them both should the need arise. Carefully, she leans forward to hopefully see their late arrival.

The first thing that catches her eye is the absolutely obliterated road.

It looks like the explosion came from the road...like a mine? How would someone even know where to mine? No one other than her family and demigods knew where Cas was planning on going this weekend and this was an unexpected detour…

Well fuck.

Bogus tip into an ambush….all that from her first glance.

Of course that’s all she gets because there’s gunfire and a large person with a concealed face in the fringes of her vision. Percy has her back behind the car with his shield up before their attacker can get a better shot off.

“Malaka!” Cas can’t stop herself from yelling because while she wasn’t hit even more shattered rear window sprays even more glass on her, “Don’t engage, Annabeth. This guy’s something else.” Cas wasn’t even able to make him out clearly.

He’s also given up all pretenses of subtlety (Is mining the road in an attempt to kill them subtle?) and starts unloading on the car leading Cas to essentially cower with Percy and Grover while praying that Annabeth is out of the line of fire.

“Grover!” Cas shouts over the painfully loud gunfire, “You need to play something! We need more cover! Anything!” He has his hands clamped over his ears but he nods anyway. Then the shooting just stops…

Okay, that’s not actually good news because they’re pinned down and can’t run out blindly. They’ll be shot at and Annabeth could be collateral if their trajectories intersect…..Then there’s only one thing to do…“You done messed up, A-Aron!” And that’s talk, “You completely blew your chance! And the road...like what the hell?” Percy hits her in the shoulder and mouths ‘stop’ at her but Cas shakes her head.

She can’t attack.

She can’t fortify.

But by the gods can Cas talk, “Plus, we’re minutes away from a county sheriff’s office which has already been contacted. Multiple authorities have been contacted.” That doesn’t get any kind of a response from the attacker. She does take this opportunity to hurry Grover along as he furiously digs through his pockets to find his pipes.

Truthfully, her talking probably isn’t doing anything other than making her a target but she has a very nice armored vest on under her clothes. Grover doesn’t which is why he’s being kept in front of her and not in the direct line of fire.

The moment Grover finds his pipes he starts playing a staccato version of the last song they were listening to before someone tried to blow them up (Specific targets or whole group?). The song itself is irrelevant(It’s Check Yes, Juliet) but it doesn’t sound good in staccato.

“Then there’s the pesky little detail that Iron Man is on the way,” That does stomp on her pride a little because Cas doesn’t like dropping ‘my dad’s going to get you for this’ like she’s little Draco Malfoy but someone just tried to blow them up.

Percy backs her up on it while the song Grover plays seems to wake up a few tree roots, “Yeah, we’ve got this ‘in’ with him. Don’t know if you know that.” The saplings and young trees groan behind them but it’s mostly for show. Grover would need teams of satyrs to pull off an ‘Ents Marching On Isengard.’

Then the situation proceeds to deteriorate further. The shooting stalled but obviously they’re still under threat in the very bad position of what is more or less a ditch with some trees a few feet back.

_ MOVE!MOVE!MOVE! _

And she hasn’t figured out where to-

“Bomb!” Annabeth shouts from somewhere up to their left and that would explain that. 

“Run!” Cas grabs Grovers arm and starts making a break for the tree line. She keeps Percy right behind her since he’s still holding up his Shield. It doesn’t hide everything but some cover is better than nothing. They hit the tree line in time for the second blast to go off behind them. If Percy’s car wasn’t dead before it most certainly is now.

It throws all of them forward but Grover’s goat legs have him up immediately. Percy and Cas are quick to follow(although she has to spit out some grass). Hopefully Annabeth is somewhere near them too but Cas doesn’t stop to think about it because-oh…. that’s useful. 

They hurtle through the underbrush right up to the edge of a scummy pond. It’s probably fed by runoff mostly but it’s still water and they have a Percy. He sees the water and heads straight for it while Cas and Grover break off to get out the way.

There’s gunfire again so Cas slams into Grover and flattens them both to the ground. Percy’s mostly submerged in water that, while filthy, cannot possibly compare to Hudson River water so he’s fine. Annabeth is smart enough to keep herself out of the line of fire. 

Percy sends a wave of (probably toxic) green water almost as a warning careening into the trees and the gunfire stops….but she hears something else instead. The sound of sirens echoes in the distance signalling that Jarvis did indeed get the police moving. It doesn’t mean that much though because of how quiet the surrounding area is. That could be minutes away and combat is counted in seconds.

Thus far their attacker hasn’t been very….conversational(?) which is new. Usually it’s only the giant animals that pass on the chance to talk and revel in their success. She doesn’t even know where this guy is other than towards the road and she doesn’t even know that it’s a guy.

“You’re out of time, crazy person!” Cas calls back hopefully for the last time.

Grover doesn’t agree with her method, “Cas, that didn’t work before.”

“Yeah,” She answers back quietly just to him, “But if you have a better idea then do it,” Cas goes back to projecting her voice, “You won’t take us out before the police arrive and you won’t get us and the police before Iron Man arrives.” She’s bluffing. Cas has no idea how far out her father is and she can’t attest to the competence of the police force on the way.

She does know that her group won’t be going down without a fight but maybe six minutes have gone by since the initial explosion(Which implies some speedy response time from the sheriff’s office up the road from them...how’d that happen?). This would have been an instant death for all of them if Cas hadn’t turned the wheel so this is the plan B response for a kill order not kidnap….

There’s no way that after everything it’s going to be some unknown assailant during a drive by that takes this team out.

Nope.

What happens next will come down to whether their attacker wants to go down swinging, falls back to regroup, or truly believes the odds are in their favor.

They all wait and nothing happens after Percy’s initial mini-tsunami. 

The sirens are still distant but they’re getting closer.

Ugh...Honestly, she doesn’t even know that this is a human just that it’s a large being with explosives and a gun. One would think that would narrow it down but….she can probably rule out aliens.

The stillness stretches out into eternity as they wait for something to happen.

Until it does.

“He’s gone,” Annabeth appears in front of them, “He pulled a big motorcycle out of the woods and drove south.” That’s lucky and now she knows that their attacker is male. Although pulling a motorcycle out of the woods doesn’t attest to status as a baseline human so that eliminates a large portion of the population.

Cas and Grover stand up and while Percy makes his way over to Annabeth (the nasty pond water just falls off of him and he’s fully healed), “Were you hit?” She shakes her head and looks around.

“We should probably head back to the road,” Annabeth sounds breathless and she looks a little messy but unharmed. All of them are unharmed.

“Let’s go,” Cas rolls her shoulders and starts making her way towards the road. When she figures out who did this she’ll teach them a thing or two about the wrath of demigods. But that’s for later.

Now?

They pick through the wreckage of the car and pull out anything salvageable. Thankfully, Percy had taken out all of his school things for the trip so that’s safe in New York.

~~~

The police called an ambulance despite being told that it’s unnecessary.

The paramedics put a shock blanket on her despite being told that’s unnecessary. She gave it to Grover who is stuffing pieces of it into his mouth.

The second explosion killed her phone and she considered borrowing one to call her dad from but he’s already on the way. Annabeth sent a ‘We’re alive’ text for her so that should cover it.

The only good news is that Grover was carrying the ambrosia so Cas and Annabeth are sitting with bruises and cuts that look days old instead of forty minutes. It’s good news because she can refuse medical treatment without much consequence. It’s also good news because she’s leaning against a police car, lucid and uninjured, answering questions in the vaguest manner possible. Gods and monsters have not been ruled out as the cause so Cas would hate to involve Massachusetts police in this.

“Did you get a good look at your attacker?”

“No,” Cas says and while Annabeth sort of saw him….Somehow someone knew where they were, where they were going, and had an approximate time for when they’d come through this area. They’re not giving out any useful information, not when almost a year ago Cas got screwed over by the former vice-president. Before long her most notable trait is going to be her trust issues but that’s the fault of the people doing the betraying.

“Can you think of any reason someone would want to harm you?”

She doesn’t resist the sharp bark of laughter that crawls up her throat at that one, “You serious?”

“Answer the question please, miss.” Huh, Officer Serious over here….She’ll let the ‘miss’ slide given the situation.

“I mean this in the least conceited way possible but I’m me,” She takes a sip from the water the paramedic gave her after she refused to let them check her for a concussion. It’s not fun to have a flashlight shined in her eyes.

Grover is seated with Percy since he’s the only one feeling his injuries right now. He’s going to be on the mend for a while but at least he can spend time with Juniper in camp. The paramedics don’t really want to touch him since he’s a satyr hence why Percy is sticking close. Annabeth is answering questions for another officer a few feet away.

“So no,” Why is this officer annoyed when he’s asking stupid question? She’s Cassandra Stark and a demigod. Anyone who hates her dad hates her and all of the angry monsters hate Cas for existing. Look at that, she didn’t even have to try to get people to hate her. How dare she breathe, “What are you doing on the road this morning?”

“We were headed to Providence,” She needs to figure out who contacted Chiron about that because they were set up.

“Why?” Nosey asshat. Can she leave now? She’ll literally walk to the nearest town and just buy a car at this point. It’s not like Iron Man can fly them all back to New York from there.

“Work related reasons,” She smiles sharply at the officer and it pulls on her cut lip but it’s worth it. This continues. The officer asks another a question and Cas obfusicates. There’s no deliberate lies or misdirects but she only gives as much information as necessary to be honest.

It must be infuriating for the officer in charge however somewhere up the pipeline is a security leak and she doesn’t have any faith that the police systems are secure enough to deter interlopers. 

How did their attackers know she was in Salem?

To be perfectly honest, Cas isn’t all that fond of being stuck on the side of the road after what just happened. Their attacker retreated but to where? And will he be back?

But thankfully she doesn’t need to answer all of this now or even continue speaking with Officer Irritating. The Mark XLIII lands with its usual aplomb and elegantly unfolds allowing her father to step out. He looks like he ran from a meeting to get here….it’s possible that he did. Weekends don’t mean much to their lifestyle anymore.

His eyes lock onto her and his face pales.

Shit. Did she wash the blood off of her face? A quick wipe with her hand across the dried blood on her forehead tells her that she did not.

“Sentry mode,” Her father dismisses the armor with a wave of his hand, “Check the area for anyone that stands out.” The suit flies off which can really be interpreted as her brother ditching her with her father. He makes his way through the crowd, completely ignores the police, and starts to check her over, “What happened? Are you hurt?” It’s appreciated but the timing is bad.

“Dad stop,” She puts her hands up and steps back before he embarasses them both. He’s seen her more messed up than this before anyway, “I’m fine. Just a few bruises.” 

Behind them she can hear Percy, “We’re fine too, Mr. Stark.” She doesn’t waste the energy necessary to turn and glare. It’s not worth it.

It works though because her father barks out a very strained laugh and runs a hand through his hair. He still looks a little panicked. Cas thinks he wouldn’t look so strung out if she hadn’t broken her phone again, “We were attacked - no clue why - but we handled it.”

He looks down at the remains of Percy’s car, “You handled it?”

“Yep,” She pops the ‘p’ as she says it, “Despite a few minor injuries, we're good to go.”

She regrets her words as soon as they’re out of her mouth because it’s like her father ages three extra years due to stress, “Who’s injured?”

“Grover,” Cas points over her shoulder, “He’ll be fine but the baseline paramedics aren’t licensed for farm animals.” The satyr in question bleats in irritation behind her.

“Good,” He nods and his eyes drift towards the wreckage again which probably isn’t good for anyone’s mental health right now. Considering how okay she is it doesn’t make sense that he’s so upset. Sure, she was attacked and the use of proximity triggered explosives against her is new but she fought aliens with her father once. He didn’t look like he was visited by the ghost of christmas future during that fiasco. In fact, he didn’t start to look off until months later.

This is weird but it’s her dad so….to be expected?

“So how do we get home? I’m assuming you didn’t make Happy start driving up here and I’m not taking the Iron Bus from here to New York, ” She tries to change the subject, “Are we picking up a car somewhere nearby?” It’s also something that she wants to know.

Now her father really laughs in her face, “Uh yeah, how about no?” She just blinks at him in confusion. They haven’t invented teleportation so Cas can’t think of another way home. Well….there’s probably a Labyrinth entrance nearby but that’s not going to go over well with the current metaphorical climate, “We’re flying you all back.”

What?

Nope.

Nuh-uh.

“Did you forget about Ariel?” It’s possible he did. There’s a lot happening and Percy’s air travel ban has never been an issue before, “Having just survived a bomb,” Really, it’s two bombs, “I’m not looking to catch a lightning bolt today.”

“We’re going to have to agree with that, Mr. Stark,” Grover adds in which confirms his continued good health.

Her father is undeterred, “Don’t worry about it, DeVito,” That’s not exactly reassuring for them.

“Dad…” There’s innumerable reasons why flying home is a poor life choice.

“Excuse me,” Ah, that’s right. The police are still here, “We haven’t finished taking statements yet.”

Then her father turns his sights on the probably unprepared officer. It’s not the man’s fault. It’s just her father, “You’re taking statements where someone just tried to kill them. Don’t you think that’s a little insecure.” Well...maybe a little.

“Dad, you don’t need-”

“That’s true,” The police officer does not look or sound happy, “How about we head back up to the sheriff station,” Cas is not getting in the back of a police car, “And finish our talk there.” He’s probably just a little waspish since her father attacked their ability to do their jobs.

“Yeah,” That’s not a good tone from her father, “How about no. Any further questions you have can be answered remotely. Their ride is here.” What?

She hears it before she sees it. Oh gods, why? There is literally no need for this, “Did you really bring the jet?” This is so embarrassing. 

Her father had to fly up to Massachusetts because someone tried to kill her again and now she’s being flown back to New York in the experimental jet. This is not low key at all.

“Yep,” This time he pops the ‘p’ and it must be in mockery of her, “We’ll be dropping the spares off in Boston. Then we’re going to New York.” It’s a good sign that he’s coming back to himself. The Quinjet lands in the middle of the interstate which is now blocked off on both sides a quarter mile in each direction(That’s another thing. Where were the other cars? It wasn’t that early when they left Salem.). The gaping of the normies is ignored in favor of grabbing her personal belongings that survived the attack and trudging her way over to the ramp.

This gets worse because her father doesn’t call the armor back. He walks up the ramp and directs Jarvis to pilot the suit back to the tower remotely. It makes Cas pause and allow the others to catch up with her, “At least we’re going back in style.” Percy says as he walks Grover up the ramp.

“Pick it up, children,” He’s impatient, “Haven’t got all day.” Ugh, Cas hates being the cause of this in her father’s life however this is probably the most embarrassing emergency call to a parent ever….she’s exaggerating but still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh...gee whiz, I wonder who that was and I wonder who sent them.
> 
> And I wonder how the gods are reacting to their command being...disregarded...


	29. Prelude to a Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a question for you guys.
> 
> Did anyone here play the PS2? And if you did, did you ever play LotR: The Third Age?
> 
> It was the first two disc game I ever played and man was it freaking huge. This game was massive and in a way it's kind of the first OC insert story I ever followed. 
> 
> The game opens with you being Berethor, Captain of the Gondorian Citadel Guard, on a mission from the Steward to find and assist Boromir. One can easily imagine how well that ended. Along the way you, the player, build your own fellowship and also fight alongside members of the actual Fellowship at different points in the movies/books. Fighting the Witch King with Eowyn is still one of the hardest boss fights ever.
> 
> Anyway, I was thinking about that because in a way most OC inserts are like that. There's a balance of telling an original story but not ruining the magic of the original tale that brought the fans in the first place. If you ever get the opportunity to play the game I highly recommend it.

The terrifying and short flight to Boston can be skipped over.

It was low, turbulence riddled, and miserable.

Pretty much, her father decided without any input from the people who have spoken to Zeus that if he keeps the trip as short as possible and at the lowest possible altitude then they’re golden.

It works….barely.

Also, there’s no way that they didn’t break any air traffic laws during that taxi service; however, the laws aren’t applicable to private experimental jets. They will be soon but not yet.

Hence, they got away with it.

There’s a spare phone on the Quinjet that Cas quickly downloads her profile onto from the cloud. With her system preferences and account settings all synced up it’s like she never lost the previous one. At this rate Cas will take the lead for most Stark phones killed. Currently, Jake Mason, Son of Hephaestus, is in the lead with seven confirmed kills since the first phones were launched back in 2010.

He’s got skills.

Nah, he just gets into the zone and leaves it in the wrong places while working in the Forges, Bunker 9, or the garages.

She empathizes.

Cas is finishing up with that(and arranging for the transport of the dead car) when the short jump from their previous location to Boston ends and the other passengers disembark(Percy runs). Annabeth shoots a glance between Cas and her father before raising a brow. It’s like she’s asking if she should try and stay. Cas shakes her head in response.

This whole situation feels like when Mufasa sent Zazu back to Pride Rock with Nala before having a talk with Simba. She snorts at the comparison, “Take it easy, G-man.” Cas says to the retreating group and Grover lifts a hand in acknowledgement without turning to face her. The ramp closes behind them leaving Cas alone in the Quinjet with her father….her father who is manually piloting when this entire trip can be programmed down to the landing sequence(unless the weather exceeds certain parameters that the autopilot isn’t equipped to handle).

He takes them on a wide route over the harbor and turns them south over the ocean. 

This is the long way…. Her father finally sets the autopilot and stands while scrubbing his hands over his face. He actually qualifies as disheveled right now which has to be a record for him since he can’t have been awake for more than four or five hours at this point, “Before you left I asked you to do one thing.” That he did and she was normal...mostly, “Because I did not want to fly up to save you again.” Does he really need to add the ‘again’ part?

“I wanted you to see the foliage,” Probably not the best thing for her to say at the moment, “And it’s not my fault that someone tried to kill me on a conspicuously empty road. I wonder if it has something to do with those people out west hating on the demigods.”

“The foliage? Really?” Yeah, she messed up there and her redirect at the end was not sufficient, “That’s what your going with when someone tried to kill you again with….with a fucking car crash.” 

Whoa…

That’s….that stalls a lot of thought in Cas’s brain because her father rarely swears. It’s just not how he talks. She sits there dumbfounded while her father rants about her skills in almost dying. He doesn’t paint it in a positive light, “It was a bomb not a car crash.”

“That doesn’t help, Cassandra!” Okay...she’s just going to shut up and let this happen. “Are you even-Do you even see why?” This is atypical behavior for her father or at the very least atypical in front of her. She shakes her head because whatever he’s saying she’s not getting which is highly disconcerting because usually she gets him.

He sighs and hides his face behind his hands, “Fine,” He says abruptly after a few seconds, “It’s fine. Just, you know how my mo-,” He cuts himself off, “You know how my parents died?”

Ummm….not exactly. Cas shifts a little in her seat feeling like she’s three inches tall, “I never actually looked into it. Seemed really intrusive seeing as I had no intention of meeting you at the time. I know you were seventeen when they…”She trails off.

“When they died. Come on, you can say it,” Cas looks down instead. There have been times when she disagreed with her father. There have been times where he did something that pissed her off and vice versa but this feels different. She doesn’t feel like she has a leg to stand on when it comes to defending herself in fact she doesn’t even know why she’s on the defensive, “It was a car crash.” Oh….

It seems strange. Cas never really thought about how they died beyond the unexpected sadness she feels at the thought of never knowing her musical grandmother. Cas has frequently wondered what the patient and loving Maria Stark would have thought of her spear wielding grandchild. That someone like that died in a car crash is….sad.

But Howard Stark? A monumental titan of industry who helped develop the atom bomb, co-founded Shield, and was involved in the creation of Captain America died in a car crash. It sounds so mundane. It’s like saying Achilles went home with Patroclus and died of extreme old age. Nothing about it fits the legend attached to the individual in question.

Maybe that’s just the demigod in her talking.

“You laugh like her.”

“I’m sorry,” She doesn’t know what else to say and she really doesn’t know what she’s apologizing for but that’s what comes out when she tries to talk.

“No,” He dismisses it with a hand and falls back into a seat across the cabin, “God, don't be sorry about it. Just don’t get yourself into trouble.” If she could she would. Honestly, Cas really wasn’t trying to cause problems.

“I’m really bad at that,” It’s almost like a talent or whatever the opposite of a talent is.

“Yeah, I noticed,” The resigned way he speaks makes Cas feel guilty for her past actions that were actually risky, “Okay,” And then he’s recovered and they can just not talk about this again, “The protests - if you want to call them that, I’ve been protested before and it was worse than this - those groups don't have enough backing to stage an attack like that.”

She figured as much. She’s also glad that her father is shifting to responding to the attack rather than the existence of the attack itself, “I just don’t get why anyone would want to have me killed like that. Well, that’s assuming I was the target.”

The look of absolute exasperation her father sends her way has Cas responding with a tight lipped smile, “I dropped the kiddies off in Boston. You let me. So we both know they’re not the targets.” Yeah, if Cas had any inkling that they were in danger then Cas wouldn’t have let them out of her sight.

“That’s a fair point but I seriously haven’t the slightest idea why someone would want me dead,” That the gods’ honest truth.

The exasperation doesn’t leave, “Your position in the company alone is enough for people to target you. Your work is a threat to energy companies and big pharma,” Yeah...fuck those guys, “But Cas, you need to remember that the world views you as the de facto leader of the demigods right now.” It’s probably not a corporation. Those other industries are the types to throw lawyers at her and hope something sticks. It won’t because their lawyers are better but it’s cute that they try.

But anyway, that’s entirely untrue. She’s the face of the demigods right now but it’s not like she’s dictating their every move, “I don’t tell them to do anything.” 

“But they would if you asked,” He cuts her off before she rebukes that statement, “You’ve been tiptoeing around this for too long and your little friends have been too nice about it. Cas, you are in charge of the demigods. If you call they come running with swords and chariots. You’re the one with all of the resources and pull and you need to accept that responsibility or find someone else who will.”

Does he have to be like this right now? “You are throwing so much reality at me today and someone literally tried to kill me like two hours ago.”

“Cassie…”

“I got it, alright? I got it,” Honestly, vacations are horrible. Why do people go on them? “That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know who tried to kill me.”

“That narrows it down, kid. Until then-”

“Stay in New York? Yeah, I got that too.”

By the time they arrive back at the tower Cas’s injuries have healed to the point of looking like bad costume make up. She still runs for the nearest shower before Pepper can see her. The Queen is tough but she doesn’t like seeing blood which is fine. To Cas it’s just annoying after it dries because it’s itchy.

The next week follows a highly predictable pattern.

The FBI opened an investigation into the events. It was a highly sophisticated attack and if Cas hadn’t felt the danger coming they’d be dead. So far the only thing they know for certain is that the explosives and bullets are custom and high end.

‘Custom’ is supposed to narrow it down to specific engineers but their databases don’t have any previous entries that match up. This information wasn’t shared with them. Jarvis ‘found’ it….and severed a few egregious third party connections that he used to get into their systems. People normally pay to have their internet security checked over by a professional inferior to Jarvis so in this case it’s a fair trade. 

Camp Half-Blood and New Rome are angry and are in favor of Cas, Annabeth, and Percy remaining in New York for the time being. Even Annabeth’s internship was like ‘yeah, work from home.’ Annabeth doesn’t normally stay in Lamark High-Rise though so that was a bit presumptuous of them. And Thor. Thor falls into this category and she regrets being a party to teaching him about the news. 

“What cowards would dare attack you in such a manner?” He was a little pissed.

Cas had shrugged during the video call, “We don’t know but Annabeth got a look at the guy.” As much as there was to see anyway. Large, shaggy dark hair, partial face mask, and an armored arm like a Roman gladiator.

The Romans were not pleased by the comparison but Cas doesn’t know of any others that ran around with just one limb encased in armor.

These are two separate categories and mostly reasonable responses to the events that occurred. However, there is another major player that’s proven to be a problem.

The godsdammed media…

_ Cassandra Stark: Assassination Attempt _

_ Anti-Olympian Sentiments Blow Up in a Big Way _

_ Search on for Attempted Killer of Stark Heiress _

And then there are the piece of crap slandering rag magazines,  _ Cassandra Stark Killed in Car Bomb _

_ Cassandra Stark Goes the Way of her Grandparents _

Legal has been given permission to attack as much as they want. Pepper isn’t tolerating any of their shit. Sensationalism is bullshit but the BBC World New article sent her well wishes given her efforts against the dark elves. So journalism isn’t completely full of assholes….well, Piper’s in her third year now so she’s publishing online and working an internship. Sadly, she will always be considered biased in favor of demigods but she’s such a good interviewer.

Plus the Lois Lane jokes are limitless...or they would be. The Jason relationship is strained again because they’re in disagreement over how much social media presence is too much. Piper is all for using it to promote herself for her future career. Jason doesn’t like the idea of that much of his business being on the internet.

Cas doesn’t see why Piper can’t just keep Jason out of any and all profiles but whatever. They’ll work it out. Probably.

And this is a tangent brought on by Cas not wanting to deal with her problems.

The actual authorities, the demigods, and the media are all reacting loudly to the incident.

However, the pro-registration front has gone silent for now. It possibly has to do with someone pointing out that registering enhanced kids leaves them open to being assaulted like Cas was.

Pink Floyd has once again spoken sense,  _ “Hey teacher, leave those kids alone.” _

They’re going to come back once the buzz over her being targeted dies down but for now people are running with ‘protect the demigod heroes.’ 

It’s sweet but damn New York….you need to calm down. Everyone is fine and Cas doesn’t need mortals threatening people on her behalf.

Honestly, it’s only been ten days and Cas is beginning to feel like Rapunzel. She’d gotten used to Manhattan being her oyster and being relegated to Happy driving her to and from the tower everyday sucks. He does it with pride as trusted head of security but it’s so unnecessary.

And yet, her every argument to end it was shut down.

The only positive is that Pepper convinced Helen to stay in New York through the New Year and in an effort to prevent Cas’s inevitable rebellion. Everyone believes it’s inevitable anyway which is insulting because Cas has more self control than that. 

It resulted in Cas diving into advancing their Cradle and the first prototype should be ready for human testing by June. At which point (as per the agreement), everything will be sent to Helen’s facilities in South Korea for the initial human trials. No matter what happens by then Cas has every intention going to South Korea with Helen before that happens. She wants to be a part of the set up and be present for ethics questions.

After everything she’s put into this she’s going to see it through. Who cares if someone’s trying to kill her? That’s the story of her life.

That’s the argument that she’s planning on going with for when the time comes if this isn’t already resolved. It had better be resolved because Cas is not spending landmark birthday number twenty five with a security detail(Happy is pushing for one and no one is discouraging him).

These are all of the things that Cas is contending with when elevator doors open admitting her to the penthouse. It smells divine from the moment that the doors open. Pepper must be experimenting again because she’s the only one of them with any talent in there. Well, Happy too but that’s not supposed to be a well known fact, he’s a tough security man. He doesn’t have time to cook(but his Taylor Ham, egg, and cheeses….so good).

It’s an extensive list of concerns that she really wants to table until tomorrow. Her phone is tossed on a table by the elevator in a symbolic motion to do just that. The plan is to enjoy a family dinner - not chafe at the concerns of the people around her - and drag her father down to the workshop after. She has access to her messages everywhere up here in the event of an emergency anyway so it’s not like she needs the phone.

“Hey old man,” She says into the uncommon silence. Something must have caught his attention, “I was thinking we could work on the rear suspension on chevy before-” And she was right….Cas comes to an abrupt stop on the edge of the oversized parlor/atrium, “Didn’t know we were expecting guests tonight.” Especially guests of this caliber. There’s a pirate and a spy in her father’s home and she knows that they weren’t invited.

“We weren't,” Her father says from his standing position behind a chair in his own building. He has a death grip on the headrest, “Javis let them up after a not so valiant effort to let themselves in.” Charming. The others are seated but Pepper’s not in the room. That’s why she’s in the kitchen. Out of sight but close and prepared to step in.

The Queen is the best.

“Huh,” She says while feigning disinterest, “Well I hope they aren’t planning to stay for dinner. I’m hungry and I doubt there’s enough for surprise guests.” Cas nods in acknowledgement of Natasha then turns to leave the room content in the knowledge that here Jarvis reigns supreme and her father is safe(if uncomfortable).

“You should join us, Dr. Stark,” Why should she do that, Director Fury? She pauses, “We were just discussing your run in with the Winter Soldier.”

Oh? Natasha actually shifts slightly in discomfort which is very telling. The permanent poker-faced Natasha Romanov is put off by something. That has to be interesting to hear about. Her father motions her into the room and she proceeds to flop into the chair her father’s standing behind.

“I thought my peeps were the ones with the dramatic titles,” No one seems entertained by her humorous reminder.

“The director and his posse were just telling me about a ghost assassin that never misses a target,” Her father summarizes what she missed.

That’s cute and unoriginal, “Halloween already happened. Save the ghost stories for next year,” Actually, “Unless Shield is in the business of ghost hunting now in which case have at it. I love a good story.”

“Maybe next time. After an invite,” Her father says, “We have a busy night planned complete with-”

And then in a surprise move Natasha speaks up, “Was your attacker tall with a metal arm? Red Star on the shoulder?” There’s no actual inflection change in her speaking. The shock factor is just in her raising her voice at all to cut off her father. Her gaze is on Cas though and she has a feeling that she needs to proceed with caution.

Shield is an organization that likes to act on their own whims to do what they feel is right. It’s somewhat admirable if their methods are excused. There’s a reason why her father got a home visit from their director and a familiar spy this evening. It’s a show of respect to come themselves but a power play to just appear and expect that there’s time for them.

They come in and offer information on the man that attacked her but haven’t named a price.

Hmmm….decisions….Well, she’s in her father’s house. Cas leans back and looks up at him in hopes of getting a hint on how he wants to proceed. She’s irritated over people’s concerns about her safety but she does take her family into consideration.

“Sounds about right,” He says, “That’s the Winter Soldier?”

Natasha nods and looks to Fury for confirmation before continuing, “I’ve had an encounter, five years ago when I was smuggling a nuclear engineer out of Iran,” Probably a defector from around the time sanctions started squeezing Iran for trying to enrich Uranium. Can’t make money building bombs when the government can’t pay….she’s being cynical. It could‘ve been a scientist looking to redeem himself like her father after Afghanistan, “Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa,” So she made it all the way to Ukraine before she was ambushed, “We lost control and went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out and he was there. The Engineer was my mission so I covered him,” She stands and pulls up her shirt slightly to reveal a scar. It causes her father to tense even further behind her, “And the Winter Soldier shot him straight through me. Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye bikinis.” She can’t have that mentality sticking around.

Cas straightens in her seat, “Harsh but I see no problems,” They have a strict ‘no scar bullying policy’ at Camp Half-Blood but they’re more likely to earn commendations. Cas is lucky in that none of hers are visible unless she wants them to be but still a scar from protecting someone doesn’t need to be hidden, “That would get you maybe six badass points with a child of Ares.” Her intent here is not to take away from the fact that Natasha survived being shot and shared this with her. It’s to acknowledge Natasha as like them.

Cas doesn’t like spies for intensely personal reasons but Natasha is someone she can probably respect despite their differing views.

“Only six?” Natasha responds with a raised brow.

Cas shrugs, “We’re a tough crowd.” Paolo comes to mind with his multiple amputations. He also totally speaks English now. He just refuses to. 

“Given Agent Romanoff’s experience with the Winter Soldier,” Director Fury interjects, “I have elected to have her shadow you for your own protection.” ….what?

Cas glitches. She may even twitch a little bit while that processes, “No.” Thankfully her father remains on point.

“Stark, I don’t think you-”

“The answer is no, Fury.”

Cas recovers enough to answer for herself, “I can take care of myself just fine. Thanks but I’m not taking bodyguard applications right now.” That’s a whole lot of hell no. She’s been very nice to Shield since the Index was repurposed to contain entries on paranormal objects and not super special children. She was even kind enough to provide an entry on celestial bronze, imperial gold, drachme, and denarii. No samples were provided but images and detailed descriptions were.

It was a show of good faith along with collaborating with her father on his consultations.

This is an overstep.

“The security teams here are more than capable of keeping my daughter safe,” Her father is very unmoved and very adamant about this if he’s going around saying ‘my daughter.’ What was Fury thinking?

“Now I’m sure Mr. Hogan is more than capable of performing crowd control but Agent Romanoff’s response is more specialized.” Cas really doesn’t want Natasha hanging around and she’s never going to let anyone Shield into Lamark High-Rise like ever.

Not gonna happen, Pirate Man. Oh look, she’s annoyed now.

“Happy is very capable,” No one gets to pass judgement on Happy, “And so is our highly diverse security department.” And by diverse, Cas means baseline humans and demigods, “How many Shield agents are trained for Stymphalian birds?”

“None,” Fury is quick to respond, “How many of your people are trained for espionage and assassinations?” Well, that sounds like a challenge. Although this does remind her of Orion so maybe she’ll reach out to Reyna through Thalia….yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

“None,” Cas says with a smile, “But we have experience with titans and giants so I think we’ll manage. And our former military employees are just as capable of doing their job.” The ones that chose to work security anyway. Alex in accounting is also a veteran. Her father’s hand falls from the chair to her shoulder silencing her. She doesn’t like it but Cas would never weaken her father’s authority in front of an outside party and he knows that.

“Thanks for the unrequested pointers,” Well, at least he said thanks, “But the answer is still no.”

“Can’t say I didn’t try,” What? This is one of those moments where Cas and her father have identical looks of ‘huh?’ on their faces, “Don’t act so surprised. We knew you’d say no.” He stands and motions between himself and Natasha, “But I promised Secretary Pierce that I would try to convince you and I did. Now, I can rest easy.”

Natasha stands with him and they both start heading for the elevator, “I’m sorry. Who are you talking about?”

“Secretary Pierce of the World Security Council, he was adamant that you be kept safe,” This is so freaking weird, “But I’m sure you’ve both got this,” What is happening? “We can leave. After all, you took care of that Mandarin business just fine.” No thanks to them….no one from Shield even tried to contact Cas following the destruction of the Malibu mansion.

“Why would Pierce show an interest in Cassandra?” So her father knows who this guy is….what in Hades is going on? She feels like she missed something huge.

“She holds the greatest influence over the largest known group of enhanced in the world and she’s the only heir to one of the largest fortunes in America,” The first statement is an misleading. No, this is not Cas being stubborn. She has a lot pull with the Romans but they still greatly outnumber the Greeks and Hazel and Frank are her equals. Technically speaking, they have the most influence and if they ever decide to disagree with Cas they could make her back down. This isn’t even factoring in the New Rome Senate, “We know what kind of person she is and we don’t want to lose her. The world’s getting a whole lot stranger.”

The second statement? Well….poo. Her father isn’t allowed to die anytime soon though so at least she doesn’t need to worry about that for a while. Potentially ever if her status as a demigod lands her in Elysium before her father….that’s morbid.

However, “That better not be with the expectation that I’ll do more calls to arms,” The look on Fury’s and Natasha’s faces answers that for her, “The Chitauri were a one time deal. Don’t expect me to raise an army for you.”

“Never, Dr. Stark,” That would be reassuring but it’s Fury and she can’t trust this guy to help a blind man without bugging his cane, “But the demigods are uniquely qualified and Pierce was adamant that we keep you alive. Doesn’t hurt that his daughter’s a fan.” The most discomforting part of this whole conversation is that Cas has learned that there are more old people like Fury that talk about her and the demigods.

At least she can trust that Fury sees the writing on the walls with regards to future threats to the planet. The man probably sees threats in angry shoppers demanding to speak to a manager.

“That’s very nice of you, Nicky,” Uh-oh, her father has that ‘go for the jugular’ voice on, “But I’m not convinced Shield can keep themselves clean let alone keep up with Cas.” What? She’s been left behind again. This is what she gets for expecting a chill dinner with her father and Pepper that took them a week to schedule so screw Fury for interrupting that, “We were talking and the one thing that stood out to me is that no one should’ve known she was in Salem. Crazy right?”

They have Fury’s and Natasha’s full and undivided attention again, “What’s your point, Stark?”

“Having experienced an ambush in my day,” Cas holds back a reaction to the casual mention of the Afghanistan convoy hijacking, “I understand that they need to be planned and staked out meaning someone knew Cas would be going from Salem to Providence as quickly as possible. Everyone who knew she was there is above board so how did the Winter Soldier know?”

“Get to the point.” Well Fury’s lost his patience and while that’s amusing Cas wants to know too.

“I was thinking and thinking about this until Cas told me something,” Okay….what did Cas say? “She was contacted by Undead Coulson about her gift to your defenses while she was there.” Ah….

Did….did Shield….?

No….if her father thought that then he would've rained unholy hellfire down on every facility he could find. So then….a crack in the foundation somewhere….

Fury doesn’t look happy that her father suggested he has a security leak. It would be up high too since Coulson is one of Fury’s favorites.

Yikes. Spies and traitors….Cas can’t stand them.

Natasha interprets this another way, “Are you suggesting that Shield had something to do with the attack on Cassandra?”

“No Superspy,” Cas doesn’t like the stance Natasha’s fallen into. It’s too defensive, “My dad thinks you have a security leak and he’s probably right. It was a very short and trusted list that knew I would be in Salem.”

Fury pauses like he’s mulling the words over in his mind, “I’ll look into it.” Then he sweeps on over to the elevator which Jarvis opens for him and Natasha.

When the doors close Cas turns to her father, “Odessa is far from Iran. I bet she had a check in somewhere along the way.”

“You caught that?” Her father approves of her line of thinking, “I’m going to keep a closer eye on Shield for a while. There’s something about this….”

Cas shifts, “I don’t like this spy and Cold War stuff.” That’s a red star, right?

“That’s because your battles involve shiny armor and banners.”

“Says Iron Man.”

She can’t deny that the man has a point though. The divisions between her opponent’s forces and her allies has always been abundantly clear(except for Silena...but no one in Cas’s corner right now would sell her out….right?).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting very close to CA:WS now....
> 
> I must confess I'm excited and nervous about how you guys are going to view my version of events.
> 
> I also need to confess that I've decided to pull back on my Agents of Shield inclusion. It's just too much and too big for me to really include the characters in any significant way. There may be some familiar names that float around for any fans but I won't be going into detail on that front.


	30. In Which There Is Character Development

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> We touch on some topics that are near and dear to my heart.
> 
> I'm actually a big fan of ethical discussions. It's something I do frequently with family members. Recently section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has been a hot topic(even more so than in the past) in the United States and for those who don't know what that is I encourage you to read up on it. So I sprinkled a little bit of talking about that in there because it's fanfic and I can.
> 
> I also touched on some AI ethical debates. 
> 
> There's nothing remotely complex about the points I bring up. I'm not going to throw any in depth research theses at you guy ever but I hope that I can encourage some people to fall down a Wikipedia hole.

2013 goes out insignificantly which is kind of nice considering that 2012 sucked however there are things to be noted about New Year’s Eve 2013. Piper and Jason were both twenty one in time for this New Year’s Eve. Not that Cas would’ve fought them on drinking if they weren’t. If they’re old enough to almost die saving the world then they can drink on New Year’s Eve. It’s probably obvious that Piper and Jason spent their New Year’s Eve with Cas in Lamark High-Rise at this point.

Yes, Camp Half-Blood follows the old Athenian calendar which puts the New Year on the summer solstice. 

That doesn’t mean they can’t celebrate December 31st with the rest of the world.

It’s nothing horrible per say. There were a few fights which is to be expected. Demigods acted like demigods. Someone painted the Iron Man statue in the lobby to be a rainbow and graced him with a pride flag….just in case anyone forgot that the Greeks have no issues with homosexuality….except pederasty because that is a practice that did not age well. Though that practice was already dying out by the age of Classical Greece.

The ancients were crazy and Cas is so glad that they’ve advanced past that stuff.

Anyway, Iron Man looks very….proud now and he will for a long time. The most important thing to remember is that both Piper and Jason are fine. Their reputations remain intact but they have no memory of how they ended up on the Statue of Liberty. Cas knows and the answer is not that Jason flew them. He couldn’t even walk straight at the time.

The blame for so much of that can fall on Thor and magic ale aged a thousand years in barrels from some sunken fleet….At least Cas has an accurate measure of what a hangover is now. She need learn nothing further about them.

No one was hurt and no one caused any incidents and that’s the important part.

But now it’s 2014 and it’s proving to be a bit of a let down….Ultron hit yet another speed bump. This looks more like a mountain though.

“I just don’t think that with the available technology it’s possible to code all of this on one global interface,” Bruce says after eighteen lab hours.

Cas doesn’t want to give up yet though, “Daedalus was able to encode his entire being into animatronics,” So the answer is out there, “He fit into a metal structure the size of a man.”

“But you don’t know how he powered it,” Bruce replies and it’s a valid point, “And he wasn’t a planet spanning system. From what you’ve said he was a fully realized adult male with direct control over his... _ magic _ powered body.” Magic is just focused human belief, universe energy, and a dash of uber powerful space rock/sludge but he has a point.

“The individual rules of the systems are sound. We just need them to cooperate and synchronize,” Like the separate lobes of the brain, all of the systems need to work together in balance. The hang up is proving to be their virtual prefrontal cortex.

Bruce holds up a hand to pacify her, “And individually we can design them to function just fine. They can be individually powered and independent but the executive function necessary for Ultron to wake up fully formed while being bombarded with everything that Earth is can’t be written.”

“It’s totally possible,” She gestures to the room itself, “Look at Jarvis.”

_ “I do not believe that the two are comparable, miss.”  _ Whatever.

Spoilsport. She still thinks that they can find a way to do this….a true genuine AI of a forgiving and strong nature capable of rationalizing all of the available stimulus upon start up...okay that is a lot. Babies scream at birth. Expecting their AI to spring awake fully formed is a very high bar when humans learn decision making skills over their lifetimes.

“I’m siding with Brucie on this one, kid,” What? Betrayal father? “Jarvis was designed to be a user interface for Malibu. He grew beyond what I could’ve expected into who you met initially. All we’ve done is expand his access as he developed naturally. He’s growing exponentially now since he’s constantly interacting with live people through the company and the demigods.”

“So we’ve made him more of a person faster?” That could solve it, “Could we do that again? Instead of engineering an AI we’d be growing one.”

“Well,” Her father rubs the back of his head, “Jarvis’s personality isn’t coded per say. He developed one from noting positive and negative responses to interactions. Namely with me,” Not unlike a human, “To do that again, we’d be developing this AI and teaching it then severing all personal contact and expecting it to defend the planet in isolation with the exception of professional relationships. Not a recipe for a healthy existence.”

Huh….”That wouldn’t cause a mental break or anything.” It would be cruel. So that’s off the table.

“Yeah, the ethics get pretty gray up here. DUM-E and U are smart but they’re more like dogs in intelligence and reasoning,” But Cas loves them anyway, “When I made Jarvis I wanted to….The goal was realistic interaction but he’s become so much more. Haven’t you, J?”

_ “Yes sir,” _ He sounds almost smug,  _ “I can happily say that I have vastly outgrown my first California servers.” _

“Even if we could somehow create a reasoning guardian it would be separate from the planet it’s supposed to defend,” Bruce crosses his arms having completed his damning argument. It’s just the idea of an overarching being with the express purpose of filtering and shielding access to Earth is really tempting. Someone incorruptible and undamaged by the passing of time….like a god but without all of those negative human characteristics the Ancient Greeks put in there because they wanted relatable and fallible gods….They didn’t think that through.

“At this point we need to shift focus to Dr. Foster’s communications, deep space monitoring research, and expansion of the Iron Legion,” Her father agrees with Bruce about Ultron then.

“I don’t like the idea of expecting people to stand up and defend the Earth for the rest of forever,” Cas just doesn’t want to give up on this just yet. Some of it’s to be prepared but some of it’s with the thought of the little demigods learning to use swords. The demigods who fought the Chitauri were valiant and amazing but Cas wants them to be redundant. She wants the participation of heroes to be unnecessary and optional. The demigods should learn to use a sword but they shouldn’t need to use it.  Her father rolls his eyes, “People do that now, kid. They’re never going to stop.” Sure. Fine. Whatever. But wouldn’t it be amazing if they could make the participation auxiliary rather than vital? Wouldn’t it be great if there were never anymore hero’s pyres?

What if they could guarantee the safety of the world long after they’re gone? There’s so much potential in Ultron.

“Wouldn’t developing a sentient doorman be creating a system and forcing that expectation on it?” Bruce is too reasonable and intelligent. In essence she’d be like her mother and creating a being with the express purpose of doing this task for her. So the vast majority of her drive for this goes out the window.

Cas sighs, “You’re right about that. To cover what I want Ultron would need to have the reasoning to choose to protect humanity but if it could choose to like us it could also choose to dislike us.” She’s going to have to approach this from another angle then. Rather than a reasoning matrix that’s an actual decision making AI, maybe they should try for some sort of algorithm...that’s a shit ton more variables they’d have to find a way to program for though, “Can we make a system like this, one that’s detailed enough to do the job, without sentience?”

“Let’s not get into this, Dr. Frankenstein,” Her father derails that rabbit hole, “With what we have we can’t even make an AI to protect and cover all of this ground that’s also capable of either subjective or objective reasoning when appropriate,” Like distinguishing a space enemy from a space friend or watching a human conflict and not interfering when it could potentially have the power to choose a winner, “So the free will isn’t even an issue.”

Everything they do up here needs to be second guessed and examined from every angle. Software updates will always happen down the line but this isn’t a scenario where they can make a mistake. That would be unforgivable which is why they have Rhodey coming in every once in while to read over some things.

Cas has considered trying to bring in Leo for some of the more nuanced programming since he has practice with rebuilding Festus. Looks like she won’t need to though.

At present the technology she needs to fully develop Ultron as envisioned doesn’t exist, “Okay, we’ll put a pin in that,” With the speed technology has advanced in recent years(They’re calling it the Stark Effect since it started after the weapons division was shut down. Lol.) she should only have to wait maybe four or five years, if that, “Isn’t Veronica launching soon?” She’s gorgeous.

“No, we scrubbed it because Green Bean had some last minute ideas,” Her father points at Bruce from the other side of the bench.

“It was not last minute.”

“Like what?” That catches her interest. She needs something productive to do after that monumental disappointment.

~~~

Winter in New York is a harsh and bitter thing. The buildings channel the air down the narrow streets forming powerful wind tunnels. The cold is unforgiving and biting. No matter how many layers a person encases themselves with the February air will find a way in and it will make its presence known.

And the snow? There’s no place to put it so it builds up no matter how hard the plows work. Sympathies and well wishes to the man who forgot to move his car. Maybe, he’ll get it back in March once the ice melts but for now it’s been encased in slush and dirty street snow. Hopefully, the roof won’t collapse.

It’s hilarious because her dear Malibu, California father can pretend all he wants but he is not a winter person. It’s why he has a Dubai house and not a ski lodge. It’s affected Pepper too but Happy and Rhodey are fine.

Cas has mixed feelings. The weather at Camp Half-Blood is always perfect unless the gods will it otherwise. So yeah, she has enjoyed walking around camp in shorts and a t-shirt in the dead of winter. She’s also accepted dares to run out past the borders into snow banks while wearing just shorts and a t-shirt. Mr. D will sometimes intentionally let the inclement weather into the woods. He says it’s because he felt like it but they all benefit from learning their limits running around in the cold.

Also snowball fights and sledding. Cas has even played the tourist and ice skated at Rockefeller Center.

Her MIT education can’t go ignored either because that’s even further north and it  _ snows _ in Massachusetts(Her father went too but that was in the 80s which is ages ago.). That’s where Cas spent the majority of her winters for years excluding breaks.

She likes winter. However, it is so freaking cold that the balconies on Stark Tower have been locked for being a safety hazard. The altitude, the wind, and the cold are just too much right now.

This is the environment that Cas finds herself hiding from while working on incorporating retro-reflective panels into the Iron Legion without diverting too much power from the thrusters during flight. Being near invisible while stationary is all well and good but doing it while in motion is the real challenge. And shrinking it down from the oversized processors the first generation Shield helicarriers used? Oh, this is a fun one.

There’s a question of why Cas wants the search and rescue/back up robots to have cloaking capabilities. The answer is that it’s cool and it may come in handy in an emergency like getting somewhere quickly without being fired upon by the air force.

And it was Harley Keener’s idea. That boy is smart and he’s gotta be almost thirteen now….How old is old enough to invite a baseline human to science and shenanigans over the summer? The kid lives in Tennessee so maybe she can convince the whole family? Eh, she can ask her father about it….actually, she’ll ask Pepper. That way she can guarantee an honest and correct answer.

At the very least she wants to open a correspondence so that she and her father can maintain more consistent contact with the kid. She has a loose image of (Harley)^ 2 running around launching potatoes and chainsaws but maybe she should keep that to herself.

It’s been a few months since her encounter with the Winter Soldier and nothing worth noting has really happened other than the Lady Liberty incident and Ultron getting shelved. Well. Her father had a birthday and Cas may have spent the day harassing him and ‘counting’ his grey hair. He doesn’t like having them pointed out and she finds it funny.

Pepper had a birthday too and her gift was “Go relax and I shall do the paperwork.” That and Cas(after enlisting Piper and Annabeth to help choose) bought a painting off of a demigod artist. Pepper likes art.

All in all, nothing crazy happened thus far in 2014 other than the blistering cold. So it stands to reason that someone will be dragging Cas into some sort of mess by springtime which has been the pattern so far. It’s why doing major expansions and updates are now reserved for the winter, that's just the trend of her life.

So the unexpected contact from Nico came as a bit of a surprise,  _ “Hey Cas, I need a favor.” _ As was the tone of that statement.

Cas responds in an expected manner, “I hope you don’t need help hiding a body, Danny Phantom.” He should know better and he can call on some skeletons to take care of that for him.

He mutters,  _ “I walked right into that,” _ He did...but Nico continues at normal volume,  _ “Can you take a day and help Steve out?” _ What? As in Steve Rogers?  _ “He reached out to me about something and I don’t think I’m the best one to handle this.” _

She actually stinks her hand with a probe in shock, “Ummm…..” She shakes out while she thinks this over, “So naturally you thought of me.” When has Cas ever suggested that she was willing to tackle Captain America’s personal problems?

_ “It’s not what you think,”  _ Oh?  _ “There’s nothing historic about this but….” _ Nico sighs on the other end and Cas takes a moment to think about how he used to be an angry little thing,  _ “He’s catching up on what he missed but there’s some modern things he’s having trouble adjusting to. It’s giving him some difficulty.” _

“Okay?” This still doesn’t explain why Nico called her.

He groans into the phone,  _ “Look, you are literally the future in a person. That’s your job, that's what you do.” _

This isn’t helping, “Does he need help signing into the WiFi? Because there’s a perfectly qualified person in Best Buy that can help him with that.”

_ “No...I think it’s the people.” _

The people? “And I was your pick.”

There’s a beat of hesitation and then,  _ “Yes.” _

Cas sighs while holding a cloth to her stabbed hand to stop the small trickle of blood, “How does Will feel about this?”

_ “What? How is that-” _

But Cas doesn’t let up poking while she tries to figure out why he’s calling her. They aren’t close and they don’t talk much, “He’s your type, right? Tall, heroic, and bright-eyed?”

_ “Shut up, Cas,” _ Okay, she overstepped,  _ “Just because I’m dating Will doesn’t mean every guy-” _

“Whoa, didn’t mean it that way but I apologize,” Cas will never joke with Nico about his dating life ever again, “I genuinely meant what’s Will’s, the future doctor’s, opinion? You went to him first so what’s the prognosis?”

His voice is a lot more tense than it was before but that Cas’s fault. Children of Hades have tempers and a tendency to foster grudges if grievances aren’t addressed quickly. She’ll find a better way to apologize to him later because he’s not someone she wants to be on the wrong side of. For now, she’ll take this problem off his hands and call it a day,  _ “He thought you might help since Steve probably thinks of you as an ally from the alien thing.” _

Will thinks that Cas can act as a good buffer for the good Captain to accept modern culture. Sure, what could possibly go wrong with that? All that’s left is the details, “When, where, and how am I doing this?”

_ “He’s finally decided to go visit Brooklyn,” _ Oh….that could be traumatizing or liberating,  _ “I visited some of my old homes after the Titanomachy. I thought it might help and it did...kind of.”  _ Kind of… _ ”It pushes that the change is permanent.” _ For the man who nearly died for his country and was rewarded with not Elysium but a nonrefundable TARDIS trip to a land where all his friends are dead that might be a bitter pill to swallow.

“Alright, give me a time and a place. I’ll brave the cold.”

~~~

Cas wasn’t kidding about braving the cold. There’s a scarf covering a good part of her face and it’s blocking her from drinking the hot chocolate/espresso she’s carrying around. It’s a cruel taunt.

She’s standing along the street in Brooklyn(and man, was it a trick to get out from under Happy’s watchful eye). Across the way from her, she spies a man leaning against a classic motorcycle staring up at an older but gentrified building for sale. There’s very few people that would take a motorcycle out in this weather.

**_Me:_ ** _ Found him _

**_Skull Child:_ ** _ Thanks Cas, goodluck _

  
  


**_Me:_ ** _ No problem _

_ Enjoy the vacation _

**_Skull Child:_ ** _ Some vacation _

_ I can’t even go see dad since Persephone’s there right now _

_ I don’t want to spend the winter as a flower again _

**_Me:_ ** _ I’m sure you were a pretty flower _

_ But for real, take a week _

_ You deserve it  _

She puts her phone away after that and tries to decide how to approach the pensive Steve Rogers. In the end she decides the best thing to do is just go for it. Cas jogs across the street while avoiding a patch of black ice.

Steve doesn’t notice her until she’s right up next to him, “It’s a beautiful building.” And it is. It’s old brick and mortar scarred by time and spectator to a lot of social change. It’s also been redone recently and probably polished up with all of the modern bells and whistles. The whole borough has been a hotbed of this kind of growth since the fire in the 70s.

“Yeah, it is,” He doesn’t look away from his observations, “The stairs are different though. So are the doors and the windows.” What strange details to notice.

“I bet they help keep heat in. More energy efficient and it lowers the bills,” They’re also probably more secure and durable.

“That is a plus,” She’s sensing a ‘but’, “But,” There it is, “It looks different.”

She nods and waits. She doesn’t last a minute before trying again, “Was this your building?” Cas isn’t sure but she thinks this is his old stomping grounds.

“Bucky’s,” Ah. At least he’s sharing(?). That is the goal of this whole thing. Sharing and closure because Nico can’t do it for some reason.

Cas imagines it must be harsh to see his best friend’s old home like this. Not only that but Barnes is the only friend that didn’t come home and live his own life after the war. Meanwhile, Cas can’t find the courage to go see May Castellan. She knows that the woman is cared for and the property is maintained but other than that….maybe she should go one day and visit for Luke. In the face of this uncertainty Cas has to ask, “Do you think he’d like it?” Is this advancement an insult to the memory of a dead war hero?

“Who? Buck?” Cas can’t see it but she can hear a smile in Steve’s face, “He’d think all this is swell. Back before the formula, Bucky dragged me to Howard’s Expo. He looked like a kid at Christmas with a beautiful girl on each arm surrounded by all that science and future technology.”

A true history fact that can’t be found in a book, “A ladies man and a science buff. Swoon. We got the wrong commando back.” She’s rewarded for her efforts with a laugh, “So are you looking to move back into the area? This one’s for sale.” Cas gestures towards the for sale sign. If she had to guess she’d put this building at 1.2 million.

“Nah, I can’t even afford an apartment in this neighborhood anymore,” That doesn’t sound right.

Cas turns to more fully face Steve who looks half locked in the past, “Shield doesn’t pay you enough?” She’s not saying buy a mansion for the guy but getting him an apartment in a familiar corner of the world sounds reasonable.

“Oh, they offered,” Huh, “I don’t need it and I didn’t want one of those desk jobs,” Ah, that tracks, “I’m more of a boots on the ground sort of guy.”

“Are you sure you’re not just looking for an axe to grind?” Because that cannot be a healthy mindset for a person who grew up a baseline human but it is in line with Cas’s initial thoughts on Captain America being a little guy who wanted to fight more than anything.

He still doesn't look at her which is starting to feel a little rude, “Maybe. Bucky used to say something like that and so did my mom.”

“Looking at where you are, I’d say you didn’t listen.” Seriously, who arrives in a time of peace from a war zone and dives head first back into a frontline job? It doesn’t sound very satisfying in fact it makes life sound like Sisyphus’s burden. 

“No,” He laughs and looks down, “I caused a lot of headaches back then.” He’s causing them now, “So what are you doing out here, Cassandra?”

Cas could be straightforward here if she wanted to, “Enjoying the weather.” However, she doesn’t feel like it.

Finally after all of that needling Steve finally turns to look at her, “Really?”

“Really, really,” She grins her most Hermes-esque smile, not that he can see it behind her scarf, “It’s such a nice day. Great for standing outside and staring at buildings indefinitely.” It’s definitely audible though.

“Cassandra, come on.” Oh good, now he can feel the inconvenience.

She sighs like this whole thing is a real bother, “Nico called. He wanted me to stalk you.”

“Sure,” He crosses his arms and looks down at her like that’ll make her answer faster, “Aren’t stalkers supposed to be hidden? You’re not very good at it.”

That’s very true. Looks like he brushed up on his social etiquette and vocabulary, “I got bored. You’re not very interesting.”

“Yeah well, I’m fine” That was very convincing, “You can tell Nico that ‘visiting my roots’ cleared up all my problems,” Uh-huh, “No one needs to worry about me.”

There’s the bitterness. It was hiding behind all of that nostalgia but Cas isn’t worried, “Whatever Cap, let’s go. I’m hungry and lunch is on me.”

“I’m not-” Oh no, he’s not getting out of this.

“Come on,” She wants out of the cold and there’s some more things she wants to try and pull out of him, “I’m craving an egg cream and I know a place that still makes them.” She’d been dubious because of the name the first time she had one but it was good. She’s grateful Charlie made her try it.

“Egg cream? You serious?” They’re an old timey New York classic unironically native to Brooklyn. Steve must have had them in his native decade. In this context it should work as a good peace offering and a reminder that somethings still exist.

“As the plague,” She turns to leave since it’s not far, “They have hot dogs if that’s your thing but I’m getting banana pancakes.”

~~~

Cas was already aware that the good Captain is capable of moments of humor and wit. It was a highlight of the battle against the Chitauri to discover that the man was more than a flat Nazi-punching soldier.

Still, “This is not an egg creme.” He doesn’t need to look so offended at a glass.

“Boo-hoo, I’ll take it if you won’t finish it,” Cas holds her hand out across the table to grab it.

She’s denied when Steve pulls it closer, “No, you already have one. It’s just different.”

That’s what she thought, “It’s probably the syrup. People buy that in bulk now.”

He holds it up for closer inspection, “We had candy stores for that,” How quaint, “It’s not bad though. Food in general is better than it used to be.”

Thank the gods for that, “Glad we’ve improved since the Great Depression.” Her banana pancakes are not going to be enough food for her though and she’s debating ordering a club sandwich to go….Hmmm….She doesn’t want to draw too much attention to their table because she doesn’t want Steve to get bothered. Truthfully, she’s not really in the mood either.

Steve Rogers is a melancholy man searching for purpose in the familiar. For him the only familiar thing he can find is combat which is probably why he went for Shield instead of the army. There’s still the usual troop deployments to reinforce, supplement, and train local allies but there are very few active combat zones for the US military.

It's a holdout from her father's initial days as Iron Man with his oh so famous Expo speech,  _ “I’m not saying that the world is enjoying it’s longest period of uninterrupted peace because of me…,” _ Ah...not so good times. That’s not to say that there’s world peace currently because there isn’t but there’s nothing to the scale of the operations taking place in the 2000s as far as Cas is aware(She would know. They have DOD contracts and Cas still maintains War Machine).

Which makes it a good time for building and a great time for social and cultural advancement….even if that was almost hindered by aliens and an asshole(Aldrich Killian). However, it also makes it a bad time for career soldiers like Steve Rogers who feel like they belong on the battlefield but are patriots who can’t stomach the idea of being a mercenary.

It’s impossible to make everyone happy but whatever. Nico seems committed to helping Steve move on and Cas was enlisted to help. Now she’s here seated across from the man who’s doodling on a napkin with a pen someone forgot at the table. That’s kind of funny.

But eventually Cas gets tired of dancing around their shallow surface conversations like, “How long do you have leave for, soldier?”

“Just until I’m called back,” Uh-huh, “I can’t actually talk about where we go.”

“And I was not asking about that.”

She’s not the only one asking stuff though, “Did you find anything on that shooter?” Hmmm….so Shield isn’t sharing everything with him.

“Nah,” But that’s not her business, “Fury said he’s like a ghost though so I didn’t expect anything to crop up.”

“Are you worried?”

Huh? “Why?” Something’s always trying to kill her.

It must be that tough it out mentality but so far all Cas has figured out is that Steve has been awake going on two years now. In those two years his only relationships are with his Shield teammates and the distant one with Nico.

Not a whole lot of friendships growing there…..but then again history says Steve only had Bucky which is why he risked it all to dive behind enemy lines and find him. Right now, he’s isolated and distracting himself from that with his work.

Gods, this is what she gets for spending so much time with Chiron. She notices these things but is so not the best person to deal with it.

“Why’d you come back now?” She’ll do her best to navigate these waters though.

Steve looks up from his little sketch of the man behind the counter and immediately looks defensive, “What’d you mean?”

Ugh….the benefit of Cas having really close friends is that when something’s wrong with them she can say ‘why do you look so miserable?’ or ‘what’s wrong with your face?’ and her personal favorite ‘did you kill them?’ Here Cas has a hard time telling when she’s actually hitting the danger zone in the conversation so here goes her best shot, “It’s not exactly tourist season or spending time outside season.”

He doesn’t answer for maybe forty seconds and Cas is prepared to take her question back at a minute, “Time’s Square was one of the first things I saw when I woke up,” Cas grimaces because that’s a lot of LED for a man that didn’t even have a calculator in his time, “It was a lot and it looks nothing like it used to. I guess I was a little worried about Brooklyn and I didn’t want to see my home look...” He seems to be at a loss for words.

So Cas tries to fill it in, “Alien?”

“Yeah,” He shows a brief smile, “That,” And looks back down at his doodle, “I think Brooklyn might be worse than that because some of it’s the same but the details are wrong,” Like the windows and stairs, “So are the people.”

Hmmm….”Well I hope we’re not that bad,” She fishes for his opinions, “They say my generation is a bunch of whiners,” But she thinks demigods have a good reason to complain, “And that yours is the ideal to strive towards.”

“Don’t know about that,” Steve says, “A lot of things are better now. Vaccines? No polio, that’s great. The Internet's useful but I don’t understand why everyone needs to post every thought in their head on it.” No one does, Steve. No one does. But Cas still maintains her accounts because she’s expected to. If she had a choice she would keep Twitter, Tumblr, and Vine. Damn the others, “Despite that it’s really useful for catching up.”

That’s dangerous, “Be careful with that. Some people post some wonky material up there,”At his lost expression she elaborates, “The internet’s useful to spread information fast but it’s just as easy to spread disinformation and slander.”

“What’s the point?” Ah, the naivete is back. She’d been concerned that Shield stomped the naive patriot part of him into the dust.

“Some people get a kick out of the attention. Good or bad,” Which is really sad since creative writing like that could be put to better use, “And sometimes it’s to weaken or demoralize opposition.”

That sharpens his focus, “Propaganda? They should take down the false information then.”

And there’s the crux of the matter, “Then we get into the debate of what’s reasonable moderation and what’s stomping all over free speech. This is all going to blow up one day, Dad and I both think so, it’s just a matter of time.” Truthfully, if a media platform doesn’t feel like hosting someone's viewpoints they shouldn’t have to. Newspapers don't publish everything people send them so social media sites shouldn't either.

“If it’s doing more harm than good then it should be stopped,” Wow, look at this. A debate on modern ethics with Captain America. Alright Nico, this was a good idea. This is fun.

“At that point you could be infringing on the individual’s right to choose for themselves. If a person doesn’t want to fact check and instead willingly remains ignorant and self-deluding then it’s their choice.” She doesn’t strictly agree with what just came out of her mouth but she wants to hear what the 40s man thinks.

“But what if they act on the wrong information? What if they live now believing that the propaganda is real?” And he delivers. He’s learning and seems to be adapting well. He has an actual phone now so that’s good.

Cas grins at Steve, “I did not take you for a philosopher.” It’s not really any sort of complicated philosophy but it is a reasonable ethical debate. Is it the responsibility of the internet domain owners to guarantee publicly accessible information is correct? Is it their job to police their members’ content? Or is it the responsibility of the user to maintain good judgement and critical thinking? Honestly, Cas thinks it’s both but she decides to halt this discussion for now. Maybe she can have another talk like this with Steve in the future….what are his thoughts on anti-vaxxers? Also for later.

He sighs and shakes his head, “I’m not but I don’t think people should use lies to get their way. It would be easier if people were more upfront.”

Ha.

Funny.

“If wishes were fishes, Cap.”

“What?” Oh gods….he’s never read it….

The first great syfy epic and it came out twenty years after he was on ice. That’s so depressing, “Okay first, it’s a book quote. ‘If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets.’ It’s like...if it were that easy then everyone would do it already.”

“Makes sense,” Good, she thought so too, “What’s it from?”

Now how to explain Dune? Well, “It’s from, Dune, by Frank Herbert. 1965. It’s the greatest science fiction novel ever and everyone down the line draws inspiration from it.”

What happens next is frankly adorable. Steve pulls out a little notebook and scribbles down notes, “Is it like Star Trek? Star Wars? Are those the same?” If Cas was the type of person that coos over cute animals she’d be doing so now but she’s not. Nah, that would be almost socially acceptable. Instead she frantically stifles laughter because the questions make sense to an outsider with no context but to her it’s ludicrous. 

“No,” She coughs, “They’re very different and Cap, I know that America loves you for being you but there are people who would literally throw hands over that.”

Luckily, he doesn’t look offended at her horrible attempt at maintaining a neutral face. She resists the desire to apologize for laughing because it’s actually funny, “What’s the difference?”

In the shortest way possible? Well, “Star Trek is in San Francisco and space in the future. Star Wars happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

He waits for her to continue but when she doesn’t, “That’s it.”

“Unless you want a ten hour presentation then yes,” Actually…, “You know, if you’d gone back to the army I bet your CO would’ve watched all of these with you.” He would’ve been welcomed back with open arms and a lot of people would have made sure he had support. No one would’ve let Captain America become isolated there. Hades, even Rhodey would’ve put his Air Force vs. Army rivalry behind him and helped out.

He nods, “Shield isn’t very familial.” Of course, it isn’t. It’s a whole bunch of spies and assassins of varying degrees. They probably have a few small groups of twos and threes that trust each other but nothing larger than that.

However, “Then why stick around?” If it’s not really what he’s looking for then he should get out. There’s no reason to stay and be miserable.

“I thought it was the best way for me to help,” That doesn’t sound repeated or practiced.

Uh-huh, “That’s nice. Can I get the real reason? The one that’s not PR approved. I’m paying for lunch after all.”

He sighs and drops the pen to the table, “Look, this has been nice.” She agrees, “And I haven’t had a normal conversation in...I don’t know but you don’t-”

Oh.

Well, look at that.

There it is. This is something familiar.

Cas narrows her eyes, “You have doubts.” She knows what that looks like. It was on her own face from the ages of sixteen to twenty almost every damn day. Her eyes flit around Steve’s face because now that she’s seen it she can’t unsee it, “Something changed or is changing and it’s making you question your original reasons for signing on.” Wow, she sits back and crosses her arms.

There’s a shift in Steve's expression and he hunches over the table a little, “Do you know who Peggy Carter is?” Peggy….Peggy….

Carter? Where…?

Oh.

“She’s the MI5 Agent that pulled your Dr. Erskine out of Germany. Pretty badass lady for the 1940s,” Given her baseline human status, that is. Also, even though she married someone else, people labeled her as Captain America’s girl(It’s insulting really). Cas knows her history even if her education has a heavy focus on the classics. It doesn’t hurt that there was a whole National Geographic documentary released about Captain America within the year after the Chitauri.

And now he looks sad, “Yeah, she and Howard founded Shield after the war.” And that drops her a bit on the respect ladder since she’s the origin of Cas’s boogie man but it does illuminate Steve’s stance on Shield.

“Don’t tell me,” Please, let this be wrong, “You stayed with Shield because she helped found it.”

He nods, “It just seemed like the right thing to do. I….trust Peggy and if she got involved with Shield then it was for a good reason but it seems like...The Peg I know wouldn’t have run things like this.” There’s a lot of assumptions being made here and Cas is not even remotely equipped to approach most of them. The first is that Peggy Carter was a stagnant being incapable of developing further after Steve ‘died.’ The second is that an organization will always stay the course of its founding body.

Looks like Steve Rogers has a Jay Gatsby streak in him longing for idyllic good old days. It probably ties into that loyalty thing he has going on and his need to fight the ‘good’ fight.

So instead of even trying to talk about this when she can only loosely label Steve a friend at this point she says, “Steve, it sounds like you're chasing a ghost.” 

“Peggy’s not dead!” Okay then. That got a response.

“Lower your voice,” She gives a small smile and a wave to the waiter who’s just looked them over, “Good for her. Old war hero and a badass.” Cas still isn’t used to the idea of knowing really old humans. And regardless, this doesn’t change the fact that he’s chasing something that doesn’t exist. He must want to remain connected to a shred of his past but it’s gone and he’ll need to let go eventually, “But I bet Shield’s changed since it was founded so….there’s your problem.”

“I can’t just leave now,” Why not? “I’m the leader of a strike team and I won’t abandon my men.” And there’s the excess of loyalty Cas always suspected Captain America had. He just said he only has a professional relationship with these agents and yet the idea of leaving is equated to abandonment.

In that case, “Then you’re going to have to accept the differences.” If he won’t take a position of power that would give him the influence to change the way things work then his options are to stay or go. And it looks like he’s staying. At the very least, she now knows his reasons for joining Shield are more complicated than a desire to hit bad guys very hard.

“Yeah, I guess,” He sighs and leans back in his seat, “Thanks, Cassandra.” She didn’t actually do much.

“No problem, Steve,” This wasn’t that bad and she may have initially misjudged Steve Rogers. It was a pretty high tension environment the first time they met so now she can see he isn’t nearly as uptight as he was on the helicarrier, “You can call me Cas.”


	31. If You Squint It Looks a Little Like a Dumpster Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've said this before but I really like CA:WS until the briefcase scene where Fury brings out the magical blue(like Captain America) computers chips that will solve all of their problems. Just about every story choice and line of dialogue after that makes me want to pull my own hair out.
> 
> I mean come on...'we're going to destroy shield and hydra.' Okay cool, I can role with that. 'We're going to do it by spontaneously uploading everything onto the internet' 
> 
> *surprised Pikachu face* And why does Shield have a button for that anyway? 
> 
> Of course it's not like the ending of the movie was pointless because Captain America defeated Hydra forever and Shield's gone too so awesome....or not. Because they both came back like immediately after....

In the realm of cybernetic prosthetics, Cas and her father have two working theories enabling them to attack the problem at two fronts. It’s a pain in the short term but in the long run it’s better because doctors and patients will have more options to explore for each case.

The simplest way to put it is wired vs wireless.

A ‘wired’ prosthesis would directly interpret commands from the efferent neurons in the peripheral nervous system. They receive the initial command from the central nervous system so it’s just following a classic nerve impulse set up. Only, the prosthesis has to translate and then act on those impulses instead of a neuromuscular junction triggering a muscle to contract. It should be easier and less invasive to do however, it requires that all of the nerves(minus the ones missing from the amputated limb) are viable. If they’re dead then they can’t communicate the motor signal to the prosthesis and obviously it won’t work.

A ‘wireless’ prosthesis would require an implant in the central nervous system preferably in the spine but possibly in the sensorimotor cortex. The implant would skip over the interneurons and what’s left of the efferent neurons. It would send the motion signal impulse straight from the CNS to the prosthesis. This is all highly theoretical still and while Cas knows her biochemistry she’s going to need a neurology consult eventually. She can teach herself the required material but an actual medical doctor will be required down the line. Helen is great but even she can’t design the surgery to put these on a living human on her own.

Keep in mind, this is a highly simplified model.

The good news is that a lot of the research is done since her father decided to use experimental micro-repeaters on himself. The bad news is that her father did the ‘research’ on himself which is all kinds of unethical. So while they know it’s possible for an artificial system to directly interpret nerve signals they still have to go back to square one if they ever want to give it to normal people.

Regardless of all that, this is a highly enjoyable project that she can easily devote much of her time to. For the time being she’s using entirely simulated models based on real cases from volunteers. It’s a sample pool of fourteen individuals which isn’t very large but they’re also the former Extremis people that in the immortal words of her father ‘aren’t so bad.’ His words, not hers.

“Hey DUM-E,” Cas doesn’t look up from her work bench. Everything is in the exact location at the exact angle she wants it. However, “Can you hand me the soldering iron?” It’s just out of reach.

Poor planning on her part.

The bot in question whirs and chirps his way across the floor where he then carefully plucks the tool in question off the stand. He’s doing great but then he turns just a little too fast and bumps into her….and completely ruins the orientation she was trying to hold in place. Cas sighs and takes the soldering iron from the dejected looking bot. He even hangs his claw a little.

It’s...not fair. He tried and DUM-E really...she should have had the iron in reach.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll fix it,” She says while fully aware that she’s placating a robot but it shouldn’t really take that much longer.

“It’s going to have to be some other time,” Cas turns in her seat to see Pepper walk in, “You’re late.” She crosses her arms.

Cas needs to proceed very carefully here, “For what?”

Pepper raises one eyebrow and Cas feels like she’s playing hangman, “You forgot.” It’s not a question but there’s no way.

“What’d I forget?” She has a schedule so unless it’s not on there for some reason then she’ll get there.

“You were supposed to be at Christine’s already,” Pepper checks the watch she wears purely as an accessory….maybe there’s a way to make watches more interesting.

Christine? The dress lady? “No I’m not,” Cas always remembers when she has to see Christine or any other clothing person because she dreads it. Some people have fun doing that stuff but Cas does not have the patience for it, “That’s not until four.” She has to look nice for what she thinks is a board member’s something something anniversary. Cas still doesn’t fully agree that she needs to be there.

“Cassie,” Pepper's last shred of patience can be heard in that one word, “It’s 5:15."

She checks the time stamp on the nearest available data set and would you look at that, “But I set an alert.” And she hasn’t run out of snacks yet. She says snack but really it’s supplement riddled bite things that Helen’s developing. The brilliant Dr. Cho has a side project for solving world hunger by literally inventing the Willy Wonka gum(it’s not gum though). Thus far Cas has not turned into a blueberry but these things don’t taste nearly as good as Ambrosia. Then again, Ambrosia always tastes like Cas’s favorite food.

Jarvis chimes into the room at the perfect moment,  _ “When you entered your workspace this morning you set your alerts to screen for emergencies only. You said you were ‘in the zone.’” _

Oh gods, “That was ten hours ago, Jarvis.” Cas has been here since 7:00 AM...non-stop. Oops. She smiles up at Pepper seeking forgiveness. She gets an eye roll instead. Cas goes through the motions of confirming work and closing everything down then she follows Pepper to the elevator.

“I will never understand how you can lock yourself in here for hours at a time,” Pepper says like her personal work/lab space isn’t a wonderland.

“I will never understand how you eat that squid dish,” Cas still gets shivers just thinking about it.

“To the garage, Jarvis,” Pepper says before defending herself, “It’s all completely cooked.”

“The ink spilled onto the plate.” 

“And it’s safe to eat.”

“Kraken-killer,” Cas will not be moved on this point. When Pepper cut into it the ink just poured out like black blood. Normally, Cas will try new foods but something about the whole plate turning black made Cas turn away. She likes squid usually(not octopus but that’s for different moral reasons) just not that particular meal, “Oh wait,” This is a good thing, “We’re announcing the new scholarship program there, right?”

Pepper thinks it over, “We can do that. It might steal the thunder for the evening but when has that ever stopped you or Tony.” Ha….never. Making the announcement to a smaller group of wealthy people has the added bonus of encouraging them to contribute without being accused of guilting them.

Honestly, if she has to go to fancy things and play the demigod that talks to all the other rich people then she’s going to make it worthwhile, “It’s fitting. Ho Yinsen saved dad’s life. This is the best way I can honor him.” The scholarship is for foreign nationals looking to study medicine in the United States and it’s aptly named after the doctor who performed the miracle surgery on her father. They’re working on others for international schools in countries that have Stark Industries facilities.

It’s a great cause and she’s very happy to have been a part of it but there’s one other very important detail. Her father has no idea that she and Pepper have done this. So surprise. Cas has a dad because of Dr. Yinsen and she’s never going to be able to thank him but he’ll be remembered. 

The ride down the elevator is filled with light ribbing and teasing that has both of them laughing. It’s so nice in fact that Cas manages to convince Pepper to go with her for this dress fitting (“It really doesn't need to be perfect.” “It actually does.” “Why? No one’s looking that close.” “They will and it reflects on how much you care about the event.” ”Fine…”). With Pepper there it won’t be that bad.

This is going to lock up her day though. She’s supposed to be on a flight to Seoul tonight. So to a dress fitting, then home to pack, and then she gets to speed on over to the air strip. Sometime in there she needs to feed herself some real food.

Why the rush? 

She and Helen have a meeting with the South Korean medical board in a couple of days. They need to have time for Cas to get over her jet lag and to review their presentation.

Fortunately(or unfortunately) for Cas, the Fates have other ideas for her day. The elevator stops about twelve seconds too soon. It’s unusual, “Jarvis?” And Cas seeks answers, please.

_ “One moment, miss.” _

Ummm….Cas looks over at Pepper who immediately pulls out her phone. It’s probably with the intent to harangue her father into an explanation. Who else would halt their elevator?

If they’re not leaving then they can at least stand in the hall and not the elevator, “Open the pod bay doors, please, Jarvis.” Pepper wacks her shoulder for her poorly timed but perfectly on brand reference.

_ “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m afraid I can’t do that,” _ Alright, Jarvis is fine if he’s returning movie quotes so it’s not the end of days. The elevator begins moving again but it’s going up, not down,  _ “Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner have something urgent to discuss with you both in person.” _

Uh-huh….

The light hearted atmosphere of the elevator abruptly ends and they shoot back up the building in silence. When the doors open Pepper is the first one out, “Tony!” She calls out, “What’s going on? I have to get Cassie to-”

“In here, honey,” They hear her father from the other room, “I’ve got something you both really need to see.” Cas follows the sound quietly behind Pepper as her heels clack across the marble floors. Bruce and her father are standing around a television in what serves as their living room only it’s not some flick on the screen.

Pepper halts mid stride into the room, “Oh my god…” It’s a reasonable response.

That can’t be real, “Is this a joke?” There’s a picture of Steve in full regalia sans helmet. It’s clearly an ID photo of some sort from his countenance (super serious and Captain-like). The strange part is capture/wanted for questioning order underneath it and the Shield logo in the corner. Shield has issued a warrant for the arrest of Captain America.

“No,” Her father says without looking away from the screen.

Cas snorts, “What’d he do? Forget to salute a flag?” Like Steve Rogers could ever be branded a fugitive. It has to be an error.

“This is real, Cas,” Bruce says from his spot in the room.

Okay, she moves closer and tilts her head at the image, “So why is his face there? Is this only Shield?” It has to be. If CBS or CNN or any other news station heard about this from police or the FBI then it’d be everywhere and all over her phone.

Her father nods, “No other agencies have been contacted but Shield can get into almost anything to look for him,” Stark Industries represents the ‘almost’ in that statement. Her first question remains unanswered for a minute longer, “Jarvis hit some unknown interference when he tried to investigate further. Terabytes of data are being quarantined against him.”

No way, “Jarvis, who’s giving you trouble?”

_ “I am uncertain at this time but I am unable to send a data packet past a newly constructed firewall,” _ That’s strange,  _ “Some of my older access points to their servers have also been removed and I am working to rebuild them.” _ Okay, very strange.

This is all kinds of weirdness, “Are we going to get the man in the spangled pajamas?”

“He’s a fugitive,” Her father says without much intonation.

“It’s Steve,” Cas replies. After having spent a few hours with him she’s come to the conclusion that he’s more than a little on the righteously stubborn side but he’s a good person as far as she can tell.

“We don’t know why,” Her father finally turns to look at her. He appears serious but also reluctant like he does in fact want to figure out what’s happening, “If he needs help he can contact us and if Shield needs help they can contact us but I’m getting the feeling Shield doesn’t want us involved.” That’s a fair point. Steve’s a big boy that can take care of himself. After seeing him look all lost and disconnected she seems to have developed a soft spot for the man. 

Boo on her but she knows better than to insert herself into someone else’s situation without all the facts.

“I’m going to go make some cancellations,” Pepper says as she walks away. Yeah, Cas has to agree with that. She pulls out her phone and prepares to make an apology to Helen. The meeting might need rescheduling depending on when they get answers. It all depends on how long it takes Jarvis to find a way in verses how long it takes Steve to reach out.

“You know, I could-”

“No.” Well alright then. She was only going to suggest texting the Captain to see who answers. He knows how, “Shield doesn’t even know we know Rogers is a marked man. There’s no way they know who they pushed out,” Right, there’s no guarantee that Shield can’t pick up a message from her off his phone. In fact, they gave it to him so of course they monitor it. Hopefully, he’s smart enough to have tossed it the moment he took off.

This is going to take a while, “I’m going to have Annabeth bring me some clothes.” This feels like a multiple day endeavour. She’ll ask questions which will start the demigod rumor mill but whatever. Demigods only talk to demigods about this sort of thing….what kind of thing is this?

Then another and very unexpected voice sounds from behind her, “That’s probably for the best.” Cas whirls around to face the god that’s shown up in the tower. Since when is she so popular with them? This used to be Percy’s problem but now there’s a god dropping in on her at least twice a year.

This one’s not exactly a problem though, “Lord Hermes, what are you doing here?” It’s funny. A baseline human cannot physically keep up with her but it’s like no one explained that to her father. While Cas tries to stand between him and Hermes, her father has other plans.

He walks right up next to Cas, “Hermes” He nods sharply, “Long time no see. Why are you here?” He doesn’t sound as polite as Cas does but he doesn’t like the gods popping in and out whenever. They both have a running theory that since his arc reactor (based off the Tesseract) allowed him to resist the scepter then they could potentially keep the gods out of Stark Tower.

While it’s a curious idea, Cas is fervently against anything that would insult Olympus in such a manner. She refused to go further into it than ‘this might work.’ 

Hermes looks as serious as Cas has ever seen him. He’s not wrathful per say but he looks ready to go. He’s dressed like an Olympian god today. There’s no suit or cell phone. He’s in armor and carrying his caduceus with George and Martha in their proper places. They’re not even shifting or whispering. The mortals in the room are oblivious to it but Cas is very aware of the restrained power standing before her.

“You’re going to need to pay close attention to the coming days,” Cas stiffens in place. What happened? What’s going on? And if this involves Steve and Shield then what the actual fuck did he walk into? She wants to try and ask some of these questions but Hermes keeps taking, “It took some doing but I managed to convince my father to handle this my way. As god of communications and creator of the internet it’s more my domain than Poseidon. He wanted to flood the place and be done with it. But they are enemies of Olympus so his opinions do matter.” What is going on?

“Do you have anything for us that makes sense?” Her father asks. It’s kind of curious but from the corner of Cas’s eye she sees Bruce move to almost have her father’s back. He’s still a little far away to make his presence known but he’s much more than a wallflower after his years with them.

Cas doesn’t feel much concern over her father talking to Hermes like this. He’s always been highly personable for a god….except right before Luke hosted Kronos but that was extreme circumstances. Hermes doesn’t even react to her father’s tone, “After their actions in November and sending an attack dog after not only you but a child of Athena and Poseidon it’s time we did something.” The gods never lifted a hand when someone tried to kill them in the past.

But let’s follow this, “You know who tried to kill me?” Was it Shield? The Winter Soldier took a shot at Natasha once though….unless she was lying. But then why’d Fury and...Pierce, was it? Why’d they say they wanted her alive? She doesn’t think they were lying.

Hermes nods, “I do. They were quick to pull back the moment we made our presence known to them,” Ah...so it wasn’t Cas’s fast talking that chased their attacker away. It wasn’t the police or the threat of her father either. So the Winter Soldier was suicidal or sure he could win. Or an idiot. Yet, Hermes doesn’t elaborate on who it is….

“So….who was it?” Cas tries to pull the answer out of Hermes.

“You’re going to find out soon. Like I said, pay attention,” Helpful…, “Their attempts at supplication bought them some time however,” This feels heavy. There’s an abrupt change in the weight of the room, “It’s about time that the gods stand up for their children.” That’s not very reassuring but she is getting the feeling that it’s not Fury and Shield so that’s promising.

“This isn’t a very helpful visit,” Her father’s right about that. It’s just confusing, “How is Shield connected to the guy that tried to kill Cas?”

“Not right now but it will be,” Hermes smiles wanely but ignores her father’s question, “I’d like to think we’ve learned a thing or two from this generation of demigods. About family and responsibility,” This is really worrying her, “Do what you can, Cassandra. And don’t forget about the Way Stations.” How could she forget about the Way Stations? She just recently approved plans to expand the one in Houston.

They don’t get to ask anything else because he’s gone after that.

“Do the gods ever just say what they’re talking about?”

“If they do assume that they’re leaving something out anyway,” Like the time Ares pretended to be helpful when he was actually trying to incite a war between Zeus and Poseidon. Or when her mother gave Cas to Elias.

~~~

Nothing.

There is nothing interesting happening in the world.

Zip. Zero. Zilch.

And a host of other words.

Steve knows how to use a phone and he wrote her number down. She remembers because she had to give it to him a second time. His Shield issued phone didn’t have his little Nokia phone contacts.

There’s nothing popping out at her suggesting a god did something offensive. No spontaneous storms or hurricanes. No famines or sudden crop deaths. No giant rampaging animals flattening a town. Nothing that would be labeled as an act of God.

It’s been like forever since Jarvis started getting pushed out of Shield servers in a very efficient manner. Cas and her father have been trying to help but it’s very sophisticated and very secure...weird. She’s beginning to think it might be Hermes but that makes no sense. Why would he push Jarvis out of Shield?

Truthfully, Cas decided it was a waste of her time and started trying to track Steve instead. A guy from the 40s has to stand out even if he’s had a couple of years to acclimate and yet she hasn’t found a trace of him...Is someone helping him maybe?

Ugh…

And where’s the Pirate-Man during all of this? He should be all over this situation. If Captain America went rogue then he should be calling in help.

Now, the question remains that if Captain America went rogue then why did he do it? AND HOW IS IT CONNECTED TO OLYMPUS? And their enemies….what enemies?

One would assume that Cas would think Shield is in the wrong and ordinarily that would be correct but Nicholas Fury. She doesn’t agree with everything he’s done(that she knows about) but she doesn’t think he’d go so far off the reservation that the Captain would pull a runner. She also doesn’t think he’s stupid enough to anger the gods after they explicitly warned him and Shield to keep their hands off the demigods.

Which has led Cas to the inevitable conclusion that something really strange is going on and her father is right about not being too hasty. This waiting thing is still really annoying.

So it’s a good thing that Cas has been hunting through the news stations in hopes that anything useful pops up to give her a hint. To her surprise, her shot in the dark actually works, “Hey old man, did you know that the suborbital helicarrier launch was today?” There’s some really unstable footage of them taking off in DC on the news as a breaking story. She peaks her head backwards over the couch she’s lounging on to catch her father’s gaze from across the room.

He looks up from whatever he’s doing over there, “I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I just supplied the engines and the thrusters.” And Cas supplied the defences, “Didn’t realize that they’d put the launch bay under the Potomac.” It does seem like excessive work given that the helicarriers were designed to never land.

Oh well, “They look good going up.”

“Of course they do. We were directly involved,” That is true. 

In theory, they should serve as a permanent base that they can rotate personnel off of and just bring up supplies as needed. They can integrate with various satellites open to Shield. Supposedly, it represents a huge collaboration between world wide intelligence agencies. At least that’s what Coulson said about it while attempting to mend fences and get the true hero stories out of Cas. She wasn’t really interested beyond the fact that her father worked on it and asked for her to help too.

He made it fly and she made sure her father’s work is covered. To be honest, Cas can’t think of anything on Earth that would attack them but given that there have been two alien attacks now she’s okay with Shield flying everywhere.

Fury’s worked with her and met her demands regarding their procedures when encountering an enhanced. She still doesn’t trust him. They burned that bridge from the onset but like Cas told Fury years ago, she’ll work with them when the inevitable attack happens. So yeah, she wants this to work.

The helicarriers rise steadily over the city and they look fairly synchronized. It seems like an unnecessary effort when they could be staggered and not take up as much air space. Eh, it’s probably satisfying someone’s OCD.

_ “Sir, I have an update,” _ Now, Jarvis doesn’t ordinarily just throw projections in front of them outside of work places. Mainly because Pepper likes to keep work and living space apart even if it’s not alway feasible. In this instance, Jarvis pops a projection of a strange skull-like symbol which is quickly over crowded with a whole lot of other pages and tables and names….all with a Shield logo on them. What is she looking at?

“What are we looking at, Jarvis?” He father takes charge over the table they’ve migrated towards and starts spreading the information around the entire projectable interface.

_ “The entirety of Shield’s secure servers have been decrypted and uploaded to the world wide web.” _

Cas freezes over a list of names...employees, “What!?!” Everyone… missions reports, personnel history going all the way back, dependents, families, and retirees all just up and visible on Google(Tor Browser users are going to have a field day with this stuff) ….By the gods….did the gods do this?

_ “It would also appear that the 1940s Nazi special sciences division, Hydra, survived and hid it’s agenda within Shield.” _ What the fuck?

Shield is Hydra? Like the enemy Steve Rogers ‘died’ to defeat. That Hydra? __

“Son of a bitch,” Her father curses, “Whose brilliant idea was this? They burned Hydra but they burned everyone else as well.” This fits that baby and bathwater phrase, “Cassie, I’m going to need your help making these people disappear. Jarvis, get Bruce up here. He can help organize some of this-this...this shitshow.”

“Right,” Cas moves to do just that but Jarvis has another piece of information to drop on them.

_ “I found record of a recent mission by Hydra marked as a failure. The ‘Asset,’” _ She can feel the extra quotation,  _ “Was called back from a Massachusetts interstate after failing to eliminate a high profile target: Cassandra Stark. There’s mention of unexpected interference and ‘accidents’ occurring around their base of operations at the time.” _ What….Her hands freeze in place and she makes eye contact with her father.

Hydra….Hydra, Hydra, Hydra….The many headed enemy that will always come back. Oh…’many heads and hands.’ 

That supplies some context….the gods knew years ago….The gods knew and warned them to keep away but they couldn’t give the demigods a heads up that there are Nazis? This is the enemy of Olympus Hermes was talking about. This is hardcore merciless for Hermes. She gets that the gods don’t exactly pay attention to the concept of collateral damage but there cannot be only Hydra people in the crosshairs right now. There cannot only be Shield people in the crosshairs right now.

Her father’s furious, “Is there any other mention of Cassandra or the demigods in recent reports?”

There’s a pause,  _ “Running a search for Cassandra Stark now,” _ It takes seconds. It feels like hours,  _ “In May of 2012 a Hydra operative was authorized to use nuclear ordinance on the island of Manhattan. The main purpose was to eliminate the Chitauri threat with mention of removing the potential hazard of the demigods. An estimate put the collateral damage at 7 to 10 million casualties.” _

_ “Additionally, in the fall of 2012, potential asset Aldrich Killian was identified as the Mandarin. He was deemed unfit for Hydra but was marked for continued observation. There were questions of whether or not the Extremis soldiers would be capable of countering the demigod threat,” _ She feels sick.

Di immortales, no small wonder that the gods agreed to wholly uproot Hydra when they launched a nuke at Olympus but it’s still all kinds of very messed up. There had to be a better way to handle this.

An explosion sounds from the TV making Cas turn back to look. It’s a sucker’s bet that Steve’s there. The helicarriers are firing at something in the air….the helicarriers…, “Dad?” They did not sign on to that level of ordinance in the helicarriers. She looks back at him. Honestly, Cas should know what to do, “Can we bring those down from here?” But she feels like a fresh baby demigod thrown into a game of manhunt.

“Jarvis, how’s your system access?” Is her father’s immediate response.

_ “I only have access to the data that has been uploaded. I could halt in parsing through it and organizing it-” _

“Don’t bother,” Cas cuts him off and at her father’s look Cas clarifies, “I don’t know if it’s like the movies but Hydra and Shield are a sinking ship. Hydra’s going to start cleaning house. All those people are exposed, Hydra and Shield operatives alike.” They need to get these lists encrypted and then to safe authorities that can get them out….but some of the Hydra operatives in the list are in government and law enforcement. Who’s safe to call in?

She gets that the gods want them destroyed and there’s no recovering from this. However, justice is the name of the game and she believes in it. The bad guys should go to trial; they shouldn’t end up dead in a ditch or on the run. And of course, there’s the simple fact that the entirety of the Shield servers have been uploaded without any form of redaction or filtration. There’s so many people that have just been exposed as having a connection to Shield.

Her father sees where this is going, “Soft targets, non-combat personnel, families, retired agents, active field operatives. They could be Shield or Hydra.” He nods to himself, “Right, Jarvis, send the Legion to start pulling active field agents from open missions. Don’t worry about who’s what, we can sort them out in the air.” They have a lot more legionnaires than they used to but do they have enough?

_ “Where shall I send them, sir?” _ Good question, J.

“I don’t know,” Her father’s reaching for answers right now, “Anything with my name on it and embassies. Don’t worry about borders, we'll deal with that later.” Then he turns to her, “Cassie, you’re going to need to contact some people on your end.”

“What?” How can he ask…. “You want me to put demigods on this? We’re already going to have Jarvis flying around and we’re grabbing and encrypting as much data as we can get our hands on.” There’s no way to bury all of it before others start downloading the packages but she can get the people off the search engines at least. If not everything then at least pictures. They can get new names and SSNs later. However, after a display of strength like this, the world is going to look very closely at Cas and her father.

She doesn’t want the world looking too closely at demigods or getting nervous.

“If we do nothing people are going to die,” That’s not-she’s not saying do nothing but….

“If I call out the demigods to grab Shield and Hydra associated people in North America,” Hydra….Nazis….actual fucking Nazis… This is the 21st century. What the hell? “People will be terrified.”

“You’d rather leave all of these people,” Her father points at the continuously growing lists of Hydra, active-Shield, former-Shield, and Shield associated persons, “To whatever happens to find them. Hydra, Shield’s enemies, whatever criminal or government agency they’re currently spying on.”

“No, but-”

“There is no ‘but’ here, Cas. We move now or these people could die.” Cas knows that her father’s right, “There are families on this list and I’m not leaving an agent's child in the line of fire because it might make someone in the Pentagon twitchy.” He’s right.

“Why are  _ we _ doing this?” All of these agents and people. This is huge and Cas does monsters, gods, demigods, and occasionally aliens. This should be like the FBI or CIA or MI6 doing this along with their equivalents in the rest of the world. This isn’t an Iron Man problem or a demigod problem.

Her father looks at her from where he’s leaning over the table, “Who else can do it?” Who else can they trust to be clean right now? Who else can mitigate the fall out of an entire intelligence organization? Maybe someone other than her father. She was right back in 2010. Shield fucked up but her father’s going to fly in and try to save as much as he can.

Cas takes a deep breath, “Jarvis, Shield draws most of its personnel from the United States. Send the information of anyone on this list in locations west of the Mississippi to New Rome. Frank and Hazel specifically,” But where can she put the families and the alleged Hydra members? Oh….Thanks Hermes, a better explanation would have been appreciated, “And contact the Way Stations if we need more places to put people.” People that will potentially require incentive to behave. A friendly monster should do the trick for most.

_ “And what about the eastern half of the continent, miss?” _

The migraine approacheth, “To me and Camp Half-Blood.” Okay….She turns back to the TV when the commentators start freaking out. The ships begin firing on each other and slowly succumb to the pull of gravity….That’s going to make a mess too… “I need to call Frank and Hazel. Also Annabeth and Percy….” That wasn’t the work of the gods….Something made those aircraft shoot themselves down over the nation’s capital. Steve didn’t do that on his own. He’s not that technologically adapted.

Her father starts talking again, “Take care of that. There’s plenty of work to go around,” No shit, “Oh look, Senator Stern is Hydra. I knew there was something wrong with that guy.” That’s probably going to be the only bit of humor Cas gets for a while. This is going to be huge….so much for South Korea.

Bruce comes jogging into the room, “Green bean,” Her father says unenthusiastically, “Come take over here. I have to fly to….” He squints at the small font, “Bosnia. Bye.” He claps Bruce on the shoulder who looks a little overwhelmed at the onslaught of data. Only for a moment though. Cas nods at him then walks away to make her calls from another area. She’ll focus on innocents and outsiders first but….it’s going to have to be more simultaneous than that. If Hydra gets wind that she’s trying to pull people then they could try and go to ground faster. Hopefully, Jarvis can find most of their bolt holes but she wouldn’t put it past them to try and keep some things off the books.

They’re spies. Hydra spies that’ve been hiding in Shield spies and getting everything so twisted up that Shield didn’t even notice the difference.

That says something very dark about the way Shield operates.

The demigod resurgence in the world was marked by them defending the world from an alien invasion. This is going to be the largest group action of demigods since then assuming that she can convince them to mobilize. Despite what everyone always implies, as Strategos she can only command the volunteers who agree to follow her. It’s not a blanket coverage of all Greek demigods. Anyone could in theory call for a vote to overturn what she has to say.

Although Annabeth still believes that she has everyone’s trust….

She takes the spontaneous conference call at another table in the next room. Frank is the first one to join,  _ “Cas, what’s this about? I have this list here and this stuff looks classified.” _

“Used to be,” Not long ago...like a half an hour max, “You near a TV?”

She gets that Hermes is the god who invented the internet but there had to be a better way to do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of very important statements:
> 
> @anony-nonny your comments have given me quite a few ideas and I think you're the person who commented about what Hydra was scheming the background to do. I had considered some of it but you inspired a few details, so thanks. :)
> 
> I also feel like I'm missing a commenter who gave me an idea. I hope I'm not but if I did use something straight off a comment call me out. I must thank you for planting a thought in my noggin.
> 
> I also have to thank all of my readers here following my ridiculous little crossover/OC driven story. Child of Nike has exceeded 5000 hits. Damn guys. Either a lot of people are reading it or a few of you really like it. Either way, I'm really flattered and grateful. ☺️☺️


	32. Not in Her Job Description

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, it's another mega chapter.
> 
> So in the grand scheme of things, Civil War failed for one key reason. It relied on the the concept of actions and large scale consequences vs. loyalty when actions having external(to the protagonist) consequences hadn't been important since Iron Man and Thor came out. In Iron Man, obviously it was the weapons dealing. In Thor, the dear man nearly caused a war because he was mad his big day got ruined and he was banished for it.
> 
> Thor came out in 2011 and Civil War came out in 2016. That's five years and like ten movies apart for a concept to suddenly be relevant when all of the other movies involved the main characters to be motivated by primarily internal factors and they could blow up whatever they wanted with no one else caring.
> 
> Then boom the Disney's like 'I know we've stripped these movies of a lot of the initial deeper thought but the Civil War comics were very popular and sold very well so we're going to try and fit it all in one movie.' And thus you have the die hard Captain apologists because the concept of fear of enhanced individuals and consequences for the good guys going too far or making severe mistakes wasn't built up by anyone other than a hated character in like five minutes. (And who wants to listen to Ross talk anyway. The man opens his mouth and I want to be contrary.) The good news is that shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones did address this issue.
> 
> The better news is that this is a fanfic, those stories take place in NY, and I can do whatever I want. <3
> 
> If you want to watch MCU movies for watered down plot, pretty faced actors, and the gorgeous CGI that's fine. I've been warning people since the beginning though that this is a Team Iron Man story. I also genuinely like Iron Man better than any of the other characters. It's not just that I greatly respect Robert Downey Jr.
> 
> I HAVE FINISHED THIS STORY AND IT WILL BE 35 CHAPTERS. Huzzah.

Cas deserves a medal. She wants a medal for this. Like the Presidential Medal of Freedom or something to that effect.

Frank and Hazel were given the downlow of what’s going on and she quickly shunted them off to their half of the continent to figure out what to do.

Hazel was the first to say,  _ “Cas, I understand that we need to move quickly but-” _

She’d been harsh because there’s no time. Cas has decided to agree with her father and that means going all in, “You’re going to need to decide if your senate debate is worth letting people die. That’s what delaying here means. Figure it out without me because I’m taking the other half of the country.” She’s sorry for speaking like that to Hazel who is a literal sweetheart but there’s no time.

This leaves Cas to call an emergency meeting with the central cabin heads. It’s where the majority of the voting population is. It’s a large majority of the demigods since minor gods usually only have one to three kids hanging around. That may change given renewed interest in the pantheon. 

But this is just details.

A quick micro civics lesson on how voting for the big stuff works. It’s similar and different to Athenian democracy. In Athens, all citizens could vote and essentially all Greek ‘citizens’ can vote in Camp Half-Blood. The rules for who is a citizen have changed. Everyone over sixteen associated with Camp Half-Blood gets a vote which is far more inclusive than the ancient Athenians.

As far as getting votes in favor of the ‘desired’ outcome go, one can think of Cas as ‘first citizen of Camp Half-Blood’ in parallel to Pericles, the supposed ‘first citizen of Athens.’ It’s not an elected position but she’s trusted and highly respected which makes her highly influential as a result. Most will side with her on that fact alone.

That being said, usually cabins are composed of siblings that will vote the same way. Not a guarantee but it’s a majority. This means that in general if she needs to get something done quickly, Cas just needs to convince the bigger cabin heads and gravity will do the rest.

There are ‘big fish’ who could in theory pull votes away from her proposal. For example, if Annabeth disagreed with Cas about something people would waver in their support. Same goes for Percy and other of the ‘famous’ demigods.

Katie, Travis, Connor, Clarisse, Jake, Will, Nico, Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, and Pollux. That’s who Cas manages to get and boy are they talking in typical fashion.

_ “If they’re Nazis then why should we help them?”  _ That’s Clarisse.

_ “Some of them are just Shield….but that doesn’t exactly make it better.” _ That’s Pollux.

Cas sighs and massages her forehead, “Nazis have children too and from the data we have most families aren’t in the know, Shield or Hydra.” That shuts that argument down.

Annabeth chimes in reasonably,  _ “Can we give the names to the police? FBI?” _

Nico clears that one up for her,  _ “Sure, isn’t the DA for Detroit listed under Hydra? I’m sure he’d love to get all the home addresses for the Shield loyalists.” _

And Cas needs to add, “We also don’t know that every Hydra agent has a profile listed here so we can’t guarantee any branch of government is clean until a thorough investigation is done.” That’s going to get ugly. There’s going to be one hell of a power vacuum on Capitol Hill after this.

But by the grace of Olympus, that is not her department.

_ “We don’t know that every Shield agent listed there is clean.” _ Katie’s correct.

_ “Does it matter?”  _ Percy says,  _ “Clean for Shield isn’t like...actually clean. I don’t want them out in the wind.” _ Valid point, some agents may just go to ground regardless of what side they’re on. To some it’s probably going to look like they got abandoned by both sides. They may run and try their luck somewhere else like the private sector.

There’s a few other arguments occurring in the background as well and she doesn’t have time to address every single grievance right now.

“Guys, enough,” Cas decides it’s time to make her argument known, “It doesn’t matter which side they’re on. Even the Nazis had their day in court. I said, and no one has challenged me on this, that the demigods wouldn’t interfere unless something extraordinary happened.”

_ “Yeah, like the evil alien invaders,” _ Clarisse replies,  _ “That’s extraordinary.” _

“And this isn’t?” This is very extraordinary, “Look, I’m not about to abandon these people and I’m not letting Hydra get away with the shit they pulled against us a few months ago. You need to decide now if you’re coming with me.”

Travis is the first one to agree with her,  _ “I’m with Cassie on this. Dad told her to use the Way Stations so he obviously thinks this is a good idea.” _ Hermes also labeled Hydra as enemies of Olympus. That means they won’t be expected to hold back.

And Connor follows suit,  _ “And sneaking into illicit black ops stations across the country sounds up our alley.” _ At least they agree….she’s really hoping that Hydra is more creepy old men talking about taking over the world than highly armed bases hidden in plain sight.

Percy was already in agreement,  _ “Tell me where to go. I’ll take Mrs. O’leary.” _ It’s not surprising. Someone(Hydra) tried to have them killed while Annabeth was nearby.

It’s Clarisse who signs on next,  _ “I was always going to say yes because fuck Shield but I wanted to make sure you had a good reason to throw our weight around.” _ With that reasoning Clarisse should aim for actual politics. No one’s going to corrupt her.

Will, who’s been mostly quiet, says his piece,  _ “A few are probably going to need medical treatment.” _

Cas nods, “You’re right. I can put you in charge of that and making sure supplies go to the right places.”

_ “Yeah,”  _ Thank the gods, he agreed,  _ “Some of my siblings will want to be more directly involved.” _ And Cas will happily accept their help.

_ “You know where I’m going, Cas,”  _ Is all Nico says.

Pollux in a twist jumps in right after,  _ “I don’t know how much I can help but spies or not there’ll be mental trauma and my dad won’t help them. I’ll do what I can.” _ She half expected him to stay out of this.

Annabeth concedes next,  _ “I don’t like this and I don’t like us getting so involved but I can’t abandon them either. And I’m not letting Seaweed-Brain run in without me.” _ A weight leaves Cas’s shoulders.

Some unexpected wisdom comes out of Jake’s mouth next,  _ “It seems like this was inevitable. We built up so much so fast that someone was going to challenge that. I’m in to defend it.” _

_ “I’m willing to have my siblings assist with medical treatment and moving families only,” _ Katie says and Cas’ll take it. She also wishes Katie luck in grounding Meg because she’s not a legal adult yet meaning Cas doesn’t want her directly involved. Katie’s siblings are better for fortifying than storming the beaches anyway

Jason and Piper had been quietly debating in the background in a separate chat. They finally unmute themselves and Jason speaks first,  _ “I’ve decided to help here. I don’t know what New Rome will do but this is the right call. We get them out and then they can face fair justice.” _ She feels validated having Jason agree with her.

But Piper,  _ “Just so we’re clear,” _ She looks reluctant,  _ “We all know what this is going to look like, right? Demigods are about to go storming across the country to root out Hydra and essentially kidnap Shield associated persons just as the Hydra exposure occurs.” _ Yes, the optics aren’t good.

They aren’t good but that can’t change her stance, “I can’t let these people die because I’m afraid of what the public and the governments might do.” There’s honestly no time to ask permission so she has to hope that what they do next isn’t too hard to forgive.

_ “You don’t know that they’ll all die.” _

“No, but I know some will,” Without a doubt some already did. Three helicarriers fell from the sky. It was mostly over the Potomac but that’s no guarantee of anything. There’s a lot of water traffic and foot traffic along the river, “If you can think of someone else, anyone else, that can do this, tell me. I will call them personally.”

_ “I trust you, Strategos,” _ Piper concedes,  _ “Where do you need the Aphrodite cabin?” _

Great.

Cas cracks her knuckles and prepares to get down to business, “Right, I don’t want your whole cabins. Bans on anyone under eighteen. We’ll still have plenty of hands for this deck. At this time I have access to two Quinjets and three other aircraft. Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and DC are going to be ground zero for this so I want….”

The time falls away after that as people leave the call to move on to the next steps. Annabeth as a wonderful last minute suggestion for Cas,  _ “Call in Thalia. The Huntresses can cover a lot of ground and some of these addresses are rural.”  _ Some are hopefully homes and not safe houses but they’ll have to treat most of them like enemy holdings until they can confirm otherwise.

However, that’s good advice and maybe it’ll make up for not getting them in on the Chitauri. 

_ “Can we bring in Thor?”  _ Someone, she’s not paying attention to who, asks.

“No,” Bad idea, “I want Thor to stay exactly where he is with the very smart in the ways of space scientists and the Asgardian artifacts.” If Hydra makes a move for those….it’s not worth concerning herself with. As long as Thor stays in Boston all should be well on that front.

Clarisse says what everyone is thinking,  _ “No one better expect me to be nice when I take down a Nazi. I’m going to hit them...hard.” _

In light of everything the very concept of Clarisse performing a gentle take down is hilarious, “I agree” but this isn’t a time for laughter.

~~~

Cas deserves two medals.

She also deserves to punch Captain America in the fucking face. He should be force fed his teeth for his stupidity because apparently this was his idea. Not the gods. She knows because her father was contacted by (Former) Deputy Director Maria Hill after it became clear that he and Cas were the only ones stepping up.

If it was the gods that did it then Cas would have to disagree with their methods but do her best to aid the innocents in the way of their wrath. Sort of like how the gods would send the Erythmanian boar to any village that pissed them off and the leaders and heroes at the time just did their best in the aftermath...until Hera had Heracles take care of it but that’s another matter entirely.

In the present where this is an act of man not the gods….Cas expects the gods to be callous not Captain America who once walked a battalion out of Nazi occupied territory during WWII because he wouldn’t leave anyone behind.

That’s not entirely accurate. There are gods involved in this. With the way the locations Jarvis meted out first were almost invariably what amounts to rescues and extractions, a lot of it’s gods. Also, a small group of ships of the Shield persuasion that tried to set sail east got completely dragged down to the bottom of the ocean in a real life maelstrom reminiscent of that scene in Pirates of the Caribbean. She’s assuming that was Poseidon’s contribution and once the opportunity presents itself she imagines Percy’s going to take a trip to see his dad and ask. The weather has also been….lightniningy(?) in parts of the country where storms aren’t usually that bad….

She really wishes it was just Hydra that was facing the repercussions of their actions and the gods’ wrath.

They made it to a home in Annandale, VA too late. According to Jarvis’s records, Jonathan Fischer cleaned Alexander Pierce’s office for ten years. He’s alive. His son isn’t….The agents responsible are alive, severely injured courtesy of a pissed off demigod that put one through a second floor window and the other through the back door, but alive. 

That’s just one example. She doesn’t want to go into all of the others.

It looks like Hydra wants to take out anyone that can testify anything about them while they regroup and go to ground. Or try to. There’s not exactly anywhere they can hide where they aren’t being flushed out. Thalia does have access to Artemis’s hunting wolves so not even evil villain lairs in the boonies are safe.

However, they save a lot of people in just the first week. At first the families are confused. Some didn’t even realize that ‘insert significant other’s name here’ worked for a super secret(not so secret anymore) spy organization. As the days roll by and more data makes it to the public more people are quicker to pack up as they do the math in their heads.

Her father and Jarvis make waves first since the Iron Legion is flying unquestioned across Europe and wherever else they need to go. Not that anyone has the tech required to detect the Iron Legion while it’s traveling but they’ve made some rather abrupt and Thor-esqe landings. Those get noticed. People are asking questions and anyone with a half a brain can connect her father to Shield and the “Shieldra Info Dump” as the mob is calling it. Anyone with ten minutes of patience can dig up Shield co-founder Howard Stark. The man must be rolling in his grave right now. Hydra infiltrated his brain baby, the thing he spent more time with than his own family if her father is correct. 

Oof, she needs to try and keep a lid on her bitter thoughts. They’re not helping and blaming isn’t going to fix anything. She’s still missing information at this point.

Next, people ask after Captain America, who so _bravely_ fought Hydra off the first time but it was all for naught because they still exist today. No one seems to question Steve Rogers’s innability to not crash aircraft….that was a give away. She doesn’t feel bad about that thought.

No one notices Roman and Greek demigods moving en masse around the country but when did anyone ever notice them before? The Romans took action only three days after the Greeks started which is a lot faster than Cas was expecting. They move like machines across state borders with the benefit of being able to transport entire cohorts in the Labyrinth using Hazel’s magic.

The ‘authorities’ which scrambled to arrest comrades, superiours, and elected officials take two weeks to realize that suspects and witnesses are going ‘missing.’ Jarvis informs her of that but rather than let her handle it on her lonesome her father swoops in and talks with the likes of the CIA, the FBI, and the (surviving, non-Hydra portion of the) WSC. It’s impressive that he manages to make as many of these impromptu meetings as he does. Cas usually does these from her phone or a tablet in the backseat of a car but her father is mid flight for some of them.

She and the others are free to continue on but the ‘safe houses’ that are holding ‘persons of interest’ have to be reported to vetted and trusted authorities. Cool. That means they don’t need to keep these people fed forever. Once the government and investigative authorities finish their Purge they can take them. Shouldn’t take too long seeing as every minute another Hydra plant gets exposed.

Then Natasha Romanoff has her hearing on Capitol Hill and Cas sees red,  _ “ _ _ Because you need us. Yes, the world is a vulnerable place, and yes, we helped make it that way. But we're also the ones best qualified to defend it. So if you want to arrest me, arrest me. You'll know where to find me.” _ The hubris and disrespect she displayed was bad enough but she’s talking about her qualifications as if she’s really that gifted. Then there’s the fact that went out and put a giant ‘we’re dangerous’ label on enhanced when she hardly qualifies. If she used ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ Cas probably wouldn’t even be half as irritated as she is.

If this is what Natasha Romanoff considers protecting people then she doesn’t want it. Cas hasn’t heard from her though and she hasn’t heard from Steve either. She doesn’t care. She’s busy and she can get her answers when the world calms back down after the biggest data breach in history.

...best qualified. She’s a no longer secret spy with a long list of assassinations to her name. Her resume is plastered all over the internet because of course people jumped on information about the Avengers. That data spread faster than the Morris Worm in 1988.

It’s also entirely possible that Cas is being unfair because the gods are being pretty heavy handed. She can’t actually name the last time in history where the gods actively smited a mortal let alone an entire faction of them. And in a unified manner like this? Never. Unfortunately for Captain America and the Black Widow, Cas can’t take out her frustrations with the gods on the gods. They’re just going to have to deal with all of it.

Or Cas can work it out. Time will tell.

~~~

_ Undisclosed Location, Number 24(?) June-ish, 2014 _

_ It’s a pretty enough complex with big windows and the like. _

“Hello ladies,” Cas nods to a group of girls climbing out of a Prius. Five Huntresses of Artemis come to join Cas, Clarisse and surprisingly Nyssa, “Nice of you to help out.”

Thalia snorts inelegantly at her, “I wasn’t actually offended to be left out of the alien fight, you know,” Uh-huh, “No one needed to invent a crisis for me to feel important.”

Yeah, whatever. Cas’s mood has been in a permanent state of ‘I hate reality’ for closing on a month now. She hasn’t seen her father in person in two weeks and Jarvis is so spread out that he doesn’t currently have capability to be in constant contact with her right now. He needs another upgrade.

She just waves off Thalia instead. The greeting was plenty.

“Don’t mind the primadona,” Clar says, “She’s just mad that Captain America ran off before she could kick his ass.” Yes, yes she is for damn good reason. If he had called oh...five minutes before he started his little plan she and her father could have been ready to bury the personnel files immediately. Then none of this would be necessary….maybe. The damage wouldn’t have been this severe though...probably. No, definitely. She doesn’t know anymore but she knows that Rogers is looking for his also not-dead friend who’s been a brainwashed assassin for a Nazi cult since after WWII. He’s doing that instead of cleaning up the mess he helped make….She’d love to help him find his Bucky, if the man still exists in that jumbled grey matter, but she got stuck on damage control. The guy is literally the longest held POW ever. Cas isn’t going to throw him out in the cold because he took a shot at her.

Supposedly, this is one of the last Hydra holes in the continental US which means it’s the last place that Cas needs to have her people hit. Jarvis has been finding these things like Easter Eggs. It’s proving to be more convenient than Cas would prefer suggesting divine intervention in Olympian territory. It’s possible that the gods are making sure that the world finds the stuff they want found first and she doesn’t know how she feels about that. 

The rest of the world can ask for help if they want it. Demigods mostly live in America so demigods are gonna do the best they can in America.

She just wants to go home at this point.

“Let's get this over with,” Nyssa is impatient too. For those curious, this isn’t the team that Cas has been working with the entire time. Actually, teams have been rather fluid based on what they know about where they’re going. This is an all ladies team because they knew they’d be working with Huntresses.

It just works better.

Thalia gestures for Cas to lead the way and she does. It’s a normal apartment complex with a fire exit and a fire door that doesn’t hold up. The alarm is easily disabled and the lock is child’s play. 

They run up the stairs and Cas has to take a second to acknowledge that this is a very nice building with very nice views. For a group that claims they want to better all of humanity they seem very content to roll around in exorbitant luxury.

She comes to a stop outside of the door of interest, nods at it, and then takes her position against the wall left of the door. Nyssa crouches behind her. Thalia takes the right side of the door with a Huntress behind her. Clarisse takes point and the other three Huntresses wait a bit down the hall to help out.

Clarisse nods at Cas and proceeds to kick the door off the hinges and into the room. It’s a well made door. The last one Clar opened like that just exploded. They move in cleanly without meeting any resistance. She continues in through the apartment with Nyssa at her back but she doesn’t see anything other than lavish couches and floor to ceiling windows until the fancy accomodations give way to cold white tile and scientific equipment.

“Di immortales,” Nyssa curses out behind her. And damn, that’s a mild reaction to the….apparatus before them. There’s a woman strapped into it and on the wall there’s a screen playing something...it looks like they’re forcing her to watch.

“Get that shut down,” She says to Nyssa. This room has no other entrances so she turns and shouts, “We’re clear!” If the others find anyone they’ll take care of it. Cas moves around to the woman in the machine. She can’t be much older than Cas is….Light brown eyes, sharp features, long dark hair. Cas isn’t sure what to do for her, “Hey? Can you hear me?” No response, “We’re gonna get you out of here.” The screen goes dark as Nyssa turns it off.

For whatever reason her eyelids are taped open forcing her to look at the screen. She doesn’t like this. Cas carefully tries to remove that first so that this woman can blink. When they’re off several drops of blood well up where Cas wasn’t gentle enough but the unknown woman slowly blinks like she’s in a fog.

“Cas, what do we do with her?” Nyssa says like Cas knows how to deal with ‘brainwashed’ people. At least that’s what she’s assuming is going on here. There’s a part of her mind that thinks if Rogers was here he might be interested in tech that might have been used on his buddy. Harsh….if she finds anything helpful she’ll pass it along. She’s angry, not cruel.

“I don’t know. Pollux, I guess,” It’s the best Cas can offer, “I’m Cassie Stark. What’s your name, lady?” Cas tries to get through again.

There’s another slow blink and then a raspy, “Thirty three…” Uh-huh….

“Well, that’s not exactly a name,” Cas responds but since this isn’t a brain dead human she moves to try and get Thirty-three’s arms free, “Maybe you can come up with a better one later.” This lady’s definitely going to need a full work up with regards to a new identity assuming she can recover from whatever she’s been through.

From the other room she hears Thalia yell, “We got one! He’s a creepy bastard!” All of Hydra is full of creepy bastards, “I think he’s actually a Nazi!” Okay….really very creepy then.

“We’re gonna get you someplace safe, Thirty-three.”

A Nazi, a very damaged Shield agent, along with detailed records on ‘human programming’ methods is all they find. The junk in there is dismantled and everything is passed along to where it needs to go.

She’s so ready to go home.

~~~

They saved thousands of people. Or so she’s been told. Technically speaking, there’s no way to know if all of the people they moved were in the direct line of fire but better safe than sorry.

There have been injuries….

Like with guns by human beings….That’s crazy. It’s not like this is the first time a demigod’s been shot in history but it’s the first time that it wasn’t just a story to her. Weird that she’s more at ease with the idea of a hero being torn apart by a crazy snake lady like Lamia….but that’s called desensitivity.

She hasn’t heard of any deaths but she’s only really kept in the loop for Greek demigods. For the Romans she’d have to ask after them directly and she just doesn’t have the time(or the emotional capacity).

Regardless, it’s been a very, very long time since Cas has been this angry. She can’t even pull up a memory(The Scepter doesn’t count because that wasn’t just her anger). So many people have been killed because of this idiocy. It’s...she understands why Rogers made the call to burn Shield. She doesn’t think that they should come back after being so thoroughly infested by Hydra for such a long time.

There’s no way to tell where Shield ended and Hydra began. They couldn’t come back from that.

But if he had just picked up a phone. If Romanoff had just called her father so much of this could’ve been avoided.

There’s no way that they thought Cas and her father were Hydra because well, look at them. There’s no way.

She doesn’t understand….

She also acknowledges that since Hydra was moving to take over the world this likely would’ve been worse if they did nothing. Her issue is not with the act of sinking Hydra and Shield. Her issue is with the careless way it was done.

She’s tired and this entire situation sucks. It’s possible that more than a little of her anger is misplaced but she’s so tired. Even though she’s finally home she doesn’t want to sleep for fear of sights and smells that might haunt her.

“Good job in using the Way Stations, Cas.”

Cas whirls around on the balcony of her apartment, “Good job? Are you kidding?” She nearly yells at Hermes, the god who may be the cause of some of her troubles.

“No, I mean it,” He doesn’t have the decency to react to her anger, “For Greek demigods, this was surprisingly organized.” It was thrown together and it’s a miracle that it’s worked as well as it has. She’s just been reacting. Her part should be done now unless interim members of such and such branch of this and that facet of the government have questions for her. Even people who weren’t Hydra have been pressured into stepping down from their jobs for failing to notice insurgents.

“You know what I can’t stop thinking about?” She clenches her fists, “If Jarvis had been on the inside then we would’ve found Hydra days before Rogers gave the order to throw it all out.” Hermes is unreadable, “Did you push us out?” Did he keep her in the dark until the last second?

“Not at first,” Oh how nice, “Arnim Zola was doing a pretty decent job,” Who? “He’s not important. He’s dead….finally. Hades was happy to get him set up after he hid from his inevitable fate for so long,” Well, as long it is worked out for them, “But after? Yes, it needed to happen like this. I ensured all of Hydra’s big and important names were thrown into the spotlight and so were Shield’s. Hydra has been removed from these lands and people have been given the opportunity to see what happens when they turn a blind eye.”

Needed to happen? She doesn’t care about that, “Innocent people died. If we’d known sooner we could’ve prepared. We could’ve done this better!” She’s yelling. Cas is yelling at a god. After everything this is how she goes out, smited by one of the ‘personable’ gods. What a brilliant epitaph. She could laugh at that if she wasn’t in such a dark mood.

“Don’t talk like you know better, Cassandra,” Hermes unleashes a hint of his temper and Cas clenches her jaw and eyes shut, “Shield and Hydra, both were dripping with blood. They both needed to end and it was never going to be clean. My way left you in a position to reduce casualties. Remember, Poseidon wanted to take it all out. Zeus nearly agreed. Just be very grateful that Ares happily took care of some of the worst offenders directly. You captured Daniel Whitehall,” Yeah, the actual Nazi, “But Sunil Bakshi wasn’t that lucky.” She doesn’t know who that is but the only reason she found Daniel Whitehall and all of his ‘reprogramming’ research was because Hermes ensured she would. It’s properly demented stuff.

It’s just, “They tortured that woman.” And casualties….that’s not okay but she can’t forget. She can’t forget that the Olympians are gods. They smile sometimes and can talk with humans but they think and act in ways that won’t align with Cas’s patterns of thought and morality. Their means of caring is not the same as humans.

Zeus loves Hera but he once chained and suspended her over Chaos. Everyday that he had her chained up he would threaten to drop her in. She was freed eventually thanks to Hephaestus but she still loves Zeus.

The gods are very different from humans and Cas can’t ever forget that. This is how Lord Hermes helps against an enemy that threatens his children.

“And you freed her,” Hermes responds, “Remember in the years to come what happens to the enemies of Olympus. You brought the demigods out of hiding and us with them. We’ve changed over the centuries but we’re still the gods. We weren’t going to let them rebuild even if their little code names were entertaining. The Banker was my favorite.” Cas flinches when Hermes places a hand on her shoulder, “This was the best possible outcome. A lot of very bad people are gone and the world is safer for it. Especially for the demigods.” Huh, how much of this is her fault then? The gods are definitely more...chill than they were at the height of Ancient Greece and Rome. She doesn’t expect them to demand a pharmakos or slaughtered animals but they are definitely more ‘might makes right’ than Cas or most people in the 21st century are. 

She got too comfortable with post Triumvirate Apollo and his friendly visits.

She’ll work on that. Right, she takes a deep breath and tries to let go of her anger. It’s going to take a while because she’s drawing parallels in her brain on miscommunications leading to a body count like how all those demigods that died against Gaea.

_ No more dead kids… _ That’s her primary goal. Protect the baby demigods. Maybe it’s time Cas went back to her roots and kept her focus on New York for a while.

~~~

What was he thinking?

Actually, she knows exactly what her father was thinking. He’s a softie marshmallow man and she loves him. However, he’s the softie marshmallow man that convinced Pepper to let him put as many Shield people as he could manage on their payroll.

He wants to protect them...why? 

Cas was all for saving their lives then getting them cleaned up and investigated. She just wanted to let them go after. They’re resourceful and fully grown adults. They’ll manage.

_ “Hello, are you a member of a 21st century regime of mostly old white men that wanted to decide the global rule of law? No? Great! Enjoy your new life!” _ That’s all she was aiming for there.

But her father, while she was decompressing with Chiron in Camp Half-Blood, managed to complete the largest mass hiring in history. The best part is that half of these people didn’t even exist on paper until whenever her father and Jarvis got to it. Now there’s former Shield agents/employees/others in almost every Stark Industries facility around the world including the satellite branch in South Korea that’s more Helen’s domain than Pepper’s.

It’s terrifyingly parallel to Project Paperclip that started this in the first place.

Ugh...this is all a mess. Her brain is still stressed and disorganized. Sleep schedule? What’s that?

It’s going to take years for the global intelligence community to recover from this. A lot of trust has been shattered in the wake of secrets that maybe should’ve been lost forever ending up on the cover of the NY Times before it could be encrypted and buried. But that’s not Cas’s job. Stark Industries is Cas’s job while her family and the demigods are her privilege. 

Which is why she’s briskly walking through the halls of the Tower looking for someone that shouldn’t be there but is.

After everything began to settle, the details of the events leading up to the info dump were revealed. How Fury decided pirates were a better option than an Internal Affairs department. How Fury died. How Rogers and Romanoff didn’t know who to trust and so trusted no one except for Sam Wilson, a veteran Steve had just met and decided was clean. How the Winter Soldier is James Buchanan Barnes but enslaved by Hydra to be a weapon. (Jarvis hasn’t been able to find any data regarding Barnes yet but there’s so much to go through.) How they didn’t have a lot of time and therefore rushed everything.

It was a mess. They were caught consistently on their back feet and could only react.

Fine.

The world is a messy place and it looks like Cas was due for her refresher course. She’s trying not to hold them accountable for the actions Hydra took since they tried to do the right thing.

But the vestiges of the boogieman spy organization existing very near to her family and the demigods she made it her life goal to protect is a lot to process.

She spots her target in one of the break areas with floor to ceiling windows, “Ms. Hill,” she looks up from her tablet, “A word please.”

“Dr. Stark,” She nods in a far more respectful manner than Cas has ever received from her in the past.

“I was hoping to speak with you,” And prepared for it to come to a fight too. She gestures in the direction of an empty office.

Hill doesn’t answer until the door clicks shut behind them. It’s private that way with the exception of Jarvis. “Regarding,” Good, she’s suspicious and worried. As she should be. When her father finds out about this she’ll probably be chewed out but she’s so done with Shield’s bullshit and she doesn’t want it in her home.

“Since Stark Industries has recently welcomed all of these new employees I wanted to review the company's espionage policy.” Hill stiffens, “We had some issues back in 2010 with Shield trying to go places they weren’t invited.”

“Which your father resolved.”

It’s Cas’s turn to nod, “He did. And he consulted for Shield on quite a few projects,” She pins Hill in place with a look, “Including Project Insight.” Her father’s and her work was very nearly misused and while she’s glad they were stopped the methods were….very desperate. 

Cas and her father didn’t know that those Helicarriers were getting those kinds of long range guns on them(primarily on the bottom where they’d always be pointed at the Earth). If they had then she doubts her father would’ve given them advanced flight capabilities. However, she feels the need to question after learning about them, why couldn’t they have disabled the weapons systems and then commanded the helicarriers to land? Why did they need to be shot up and crashed? She gets that they needed to be destroyed. She would’ve done it herself but later, disabling them should’ve been the priority.

“Project Insight was shut down.” Yep, that’s one very inadequate way to put it.

“If that’s what you want to say about Director Fury’s latest flub.” Because a lot of this is on him and his choices. She can’t tell him that to his face because he died but this all happened under his nose.

“Director Fury called for what he believed was an appropriate response to an internal Shield matter.” Ha. Funny joke. Is that what they’re calling ‘have pirates steal my ship so I can break in and steal from it too’?

Oh, Gods. Hill’s serious. She’s going to cling to that, isn’t she?

Not to burst her bubble but, “He called in a soldier and a spy that he thought would maintain the status quo.” Which backfired when Rogers went the WikiLeaks route instead of saving Shield. Anyone who pays attention to history could’ve warned Fury seeing as Rogers’s entire legend is built on insubordination in the name of patriotism. Hill says nothing so she continues, “Dad contributed heavily to those suborbital helicarriers but he wasn’t called in because the moment he saw that his technology might be on the wrong side he would have sounded the alarm.” Loudly, but he wouldn’t have burned and damned all of those people to do it. She doesn’t really know how accurate that is though. The gods probably still would’ve done something along the lines of angrily removing Hydra’s many heads.

Hill releases a heavy sigh that tells Cas that she’s probably right about the former director’s motivations, “What do you want, Dr. Stark?”

Good.

“My father is a very forgiving man evidenced by how he’s worked with Shield despite our sordid history. And now he’s opened the doors and let you all in. So I’ll only say this once,” She leans closer, “Remember who stepped up and helped you when Captain America and the Black Widow dropped Shield like a leper.” 

Two very old stories come to mind from this situation. The first is actually more modern, The Scorpion and the Frog. The scorpion who cannot swim asked a frog for a ride across the river. The frog hesitated but the scorpion asserted that should he sting the frog then they’d both die. Mutually assured destruction. Convinced, the frog agreed to ferry the scorpion across but halfway there the scorpion stung the frog. The frog, dying, asked why the scorpion killed them both and the scorpion responded that it was in his nature.

The second story is Persian and likely inspired the Scorpion and the Frog. It’s unsurprisingly named the Scorpion and the Turtle. It’s the same premise but in the tale the scorpion and the turtle are old friends which explains why the turtle didn’t hesitate to help. Obviously, the scorpion still tried to sting the turtle halfway across the river but was hindered by the shell. The turtle, confused, asked why the scorpion did it when it should know that there is no way to pierce his shell. The scorpion responded that it wasn’t out of malice, it simply couldn’t help itself. In some versions the turtle makes a remark about the inevitability of betrayal when one aligns themselves with disreputable friends. In others, the turtle merely submerges and washes the scorpion from his back.

These are of course old stories intended to teach lessons to children but there’s merit to them. Stark Industries is not a turtle and the Fates aren’t so stifling that they weave people to be incapable of controlling their natures or changing their tune. 

However, Shield is not composed of her old friends so if they try to sting her or anyone she aligns herself with then she intends to remove them. Cas is done trying to convince the people around her that she’s harmless including herself.

This is Cas’s mindset during the minute of silence where Hill reads between the lines. She and her father have both been on the receiving end of betrayal before and now Hill and their recent Shield hires are in a position to do just that. Cas will not let that go unaddressed, not after how Hydra nearly turned her father’s best intentions into an Orwell novel.

Hill swallows before answering, “Understood, Dr. Stark.”

Very good. “I’m glad we had this talk.” This is the last chance these Shield people are getting.

She doesn’t like that she just did this.

She doesn’t want to be some threatening person but Hill and all of the other former Shield operatives are very close to her family.

And she really doesn’t like that.

As she turns to leave Hill has one last thing to say, “Most of them are too grateful to consider it.”

Huh….fair enough, “I hope you’re right, Ms. Hill.” These people had better be worth the headache it took to get them on staff.

~~~

After being shaken up again, the world continues on.

A lot of unexpected things come to light.

It’s a long list but let’s hit the big ones.

Despite their best efforts, they were not able to keep all of the Shield files out of the mainstream media. This is mainly because they focused on keeping the living breathing people out of the news so that a little thing called due process could take place before Twitter condemned them as the antiChrist. Also because Olympus had some specific people they wanted outed publicly such as Pierce, Stern, and a man with a name that nearly predetermined his fate as a villain, Baron von Strucker. No one has located von Strucker yet but he’ll turn up. 

What little Shield knew about demigods came up including the eleven demigods that were killed for being ‘too dangerous to treat as an ordinary citizen.’ No one named them as demigods but it’s enough that so many people were killed or detained for being ‘too dangerous.’ It prompted outrage from a lot of people(They called their little blacksite the Rat. A reference to it’s sanitation? Or the treatment of the prisoners there?). 

This was the group that built and backed the Avengers Initiative. No has mentioned that yet but someone with critical thinking skills but lacking context is going to notice eventually. However, as someone trained in global conquest, Cas can squint and see the potential danger behind a near limitless underground spy network having the ability to call in a team like the Avengers(Is someone going to take over that job?).

They also employ superhero fanboys like Coulson in the upper echelons of their hierarchy so she knows that’s not the case.

Beyond the surprise of everything data wise that shocks the world people are looking at Iron Man a little differently. He saved lives( ~~but on whose authority~~ ) . He poured all of those resources into supporting the burned Shield employees that he spontaneously adopted into Stark Industries( ~~he’s bringing in all those trained agents along with all of those half-olympians~~ ) .He liaised with all of those suits, government, and agency types to help mitigate the damage ( ~~Since when did Stark have the capacity to do this?~~ ) . The good news is that the exact extent of Jarvis’s flight paths with the legion are unknown thanks to retro reflective panels and Harley Keener. 

Good for you, small squishy mortal child.

And thanks to mortal Harley(not Cabin 9 Harley), the world hasn’t thought about the complexity of thought and skill required to pilot and direct the entire Iron Legion around the world. So no one is freaking out about Jarvis and HAL 9000.

And yet, some people are starting to question the….reach of ‘superheroes’ which is entirely reasonable for them to do.

Cas is questioning what exactly they can get away with. In the olden days of Ancient Greece the heroes would sort of wander around and into situations or follow direct quests and jobs. Or...They’re horrible but their father is Zeus. If they didn’t fix the problem then they’d probably get killed in the process. In more modern times, demigod heroes acted almost exclusively at the behest of the gods to earn acclaim and favor. There are exceptions, like Harriet Tubman, who were successful in mortal society but come on...Thomas Jefferson did not make ‘Judge of the Dead’ because he did good for humanity(he was an evil man on par with King Minos as far as Cas is concerned). 

The ‘superheroes’ of the now are having dangerous and explosive battles that they appear almost as responsible for starting as they are for ending. It’s not literally like that but from an outsider’s perspective it looks a little bit like that.

Of course, after people look at Tony Stark they inevitably turn their heads to look at Cassie Stark. Turns out that Hydra had a multistep plan to politically weaken the demigods(Scare protest tactics/fear mongering), kill Cas, and swoop in to subjugate the demigods( _ help  _ them when the world turned against them). They failed to take the actions of the gods into consideration and now there’s nowhere for them to hide.

The first time it dropped that,  _ “The demigods played a vital role in the containment and recovery of Shield’s fallout,”  _ Cas was buried in stuff….and more stuff. Just so much stuff. So many people are looking for information and she’s so glad that Happy exists. She’s so glad that Pepper exists. She’s so glad that Rhodey exists. She’s so glad that she has her friends to help her sort some of it. She’s so lucky that her father exists.

In one instance, Rhodey entered their hellscape of a ‘command center’ and asked them, “What did you two do?” Her father hadn’t even looked away from what he was doing.

So it fell to Cas to answer, “I have no fucking clue.” She has no idea what sin they committed to bring this down on them.

“English kiddo,” Her father said because she was so tired that she’d used Classical Greek by accident. That’s the language she was reading and typing in so it made sense at the time. She went to bed not long after that...and by bed she means a nearby couch.[This actually happened to me once when I spoke to a tired and distracted polylingual person.]

More stories made their way to the foreground about demigods moving around and escorting persons of interest for the authorities. It scared some people and amazed others. It shouldn’t actually be that surprising how little trouble the scrambling Hydra agents gave them considering that at twelve Meg McCaffrey beat the stuffing out of more than a few of Caligula’s mercenaries.

...she’s fifteen now. Damn.

The entire scope of the demigod response to the fall of Shield was not fully comprehensible to the public but the people in power noticed. They really noticed but the good news is that everyone in power is currently busy side-eyeing their compatriots and checking for Hydra pins or Nazi sympathies. No one has time to start trouble meanwhile Cas has trusted people that can shore up their social defenses. 

Again, Stark Industries went to bat for Cassandra Stark and therefore all demigods. Again, the majority of the world called them heroes but still some people started to look at what such a large and interconnected group of enhanced individuals could do. And they began to ask questions.

The ramifications of the past few months are going to be so much bigger than just Hydra.

The worst part?

The absolute worst part?   
  
It would appear that Rogers’s goal in all of this was to pull Hydra out into the light and kill it like it’s a vampire. One shot, one kill. All done in one swift stroke. If it had worked then all of this suffering...it wouldn’t have been worth it but it would have been a bit more palatable. 

But it didn’t. Fucking. Work. 

So all of those people got displaced, got new identities and lives, got tortured, got killed for exactly nothing because Hydra still exists. They’ve just gone to ground and been labeled a terror organization by President Ellis. To be fair, hunting Hydra is probably one of the few things that what’s left of the global intelligence community is committed to cooperating on right now. It’s likely why they haven’t turned on each other now that they all have proof of buying and selling secrets about one another.

It is kind of funny that people are using what amounts to ‘Hydra had me on their kill list’ to simultaneously clear themselves and label themselves as upstanding individuals worthy of some recently vacated seat of power. Hate to break it to you General Ross, but you being on Hydra’s kill list does not make you a beacon of morality. It just means Hydra thought you were a threat to their authority.

And yet Ross has been tapped for Secretary of Defense by President Ellis. Rhodey warned her about Ross years ago so Cas has been paying attention.

So yeah Romanoff, the world is so very defended right now. Good old Thunderbolt Ross, who’s firmly in the ‘register the enhanced children’ camp, might gain the ear of the President. Bruce was just thrilled when his friendly stalker general was submitted to the senate for approval.

Nah, he looked sick. One might even say he was green around the gills….literally. The good news is that the ‘Play’ room held up. The bad news is that he set off the  Richter scale alert in the building so some adjustments need to be made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cas goes through the emotional ringer in this chapter. She's stressed, tired, scared, angry, a hodgepodge of other feelings, and she's aware of it. So if her thoughts seem inconsistent that's probably why. The intent was for her to be dealing with a lot but not have the energy or time to devote to sorting things out until the end. I think I nailed it?
> 
> I've used this chapter to essentially remove a lot of the necessity of Agents of Shield but for the sake of fun I will drop names at random down the line. Any OC characters may not actually be OCs, it may be a name from AoS instead.
> 
> The gods....oof the gods. I said this at the beginning of the series. I love those stories where the gods do a complete 180 character wise and spontaneously turn into great parents that would obliterate their enemies for their children. I will not be doing that. It's just not how the gods operate in my head and like....I can't deus ex machina Zeus going on a stroll from Mt Olympus to drop a lightning bolt on Thanos and have it be a good story. 
> 
> It won't work.
> 
> I will however take great joy in trying to share as much history and mythology knowledge I have so long as it feels even moderately relevant.
> 
> Also funny story: My bit in there with the exhausted polyglot Cas using the wrong language because she was tired and was reading and writing in it has happened to me. I knew a brilliant doctor who spoke arabic, english, and italian. One day he was working then I asked him a question in english and he straight up spoke to me in arabic. It was hilarious.


	33. Loss of Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember a long long time ago in a story not so far away when I said that Cas and Tony were not always going to work well together...
> 
> Well, Happy Valentine's Day my dudes. Have an early update.
> 
> And note that if this story wasn't built around the idea of demigods having been rejected by society centuries ago I wouldn't take a lot of this into consideration. This probably isn't even a fragment of everything problem that would go into a group of superheroes wanting to take military grade action around the planet without being beholden to a government.
> 
> It's just what I could come up with and I imagine that others can think of more.

It’s September and the majority of the horror of the info dump is dealt with. Majority refers to the boots on the ground stuff but the US is completely cleared of Hydra. Hermes wasn’t kidding when he said he was pulling all of them into the spotlight. Hydra still exists, just not there and it’s being pushed out of wherever Olympus has reach.

The politics part is slower. The alphabet soup of agencies wants to talk to her father all of the time to get reports and updates on what they’ve done and what they plan to do next(they want to not be dealing with this). She’s tried to take as much of that as she can and between the two of them with help from Jarvis things are getting done. Plus, they averaged six hours of sleep a night the previous week which is a win and half all things considered.

She understands that the whole ‘talking to government types’ thing isn’t Bruce’s cup of tea and Thor(when he’s around) is an alien so he can’t help. However, the three former Shield affiliated Avengers could help out even if the Avengers aren’t a thing anymore. They were in fact a response team under Shield’s authority technically and Shield derived their authority from the WSC. No Shield means no Avengers...oh no, how sad...

Anyway, her father is….in DC(?) she thinks. It’s either that or he’s in Brasilia because apparently  _ The Boys From Brazil _ is a real thing. Her father needed to smooth out the tensions he caused when he airlifted a Shield agent out of there. Truthfully, she doesn’t know for certain where he is.

Where in the world is Tony Stark?

Cas snorts into her lo mein as she pictures her father in a Where’s Waldo getup. He’d probably pull it off too.

“Is there something funny about the noodles?” Cas looks up at Pepper who’s gracing her with a tired smile. There’s a tough woman. With Iron Man permanently entwined with Stark Industries alongside demigods this whole….situation has greatly impacted the company too. It’s not just the sudden influx of hypercompetent employees that somehow just know other new people in other unrelated departments.

There was Hydra suspicion thrown at them since Howard Stark founded Shield and Stark Industries. They were cleared not only by the Shield profile on Howard Stark but by the release of the Project Insight Algorithm Targets. Cas, her father, and Bruce all made the list along with a few higher profile demigods and the President.

And yet they didn’t put Pepper on the list. Amateurs. Cas and her father wouldn’t be half as productive as they are without Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts in their lives(Fun fact: Cas didn’t find out that Pepper wasn’t really her first name until October of 2010….really embarrassing for her).

But she digresses. They’re hiding in Pepper’s office because while Pepper is an extremely approachable CEO, no one is going to waste her time.

Cas smiles back, “Not really. Just a weird thought like ‘spilling coffee is the grown up version of losing a balloon.’”

Pepper huffs a light laugh, “Yeah, that’s weird.” There’s another beat of silence where Cas continues eating and reading over some R&D budget reports. They’re always over budget...., “Jarvis sent me an interesting video the other day.”

Cas absentmindedly answers, “Oh yeah?”

“It was labeled as a Potential Harassment Notice,” That makes Cas look up but Pepper still appears and sounds light hearted, “Now, normally this would go to Happy, HR and the heads of whatever department the involved individuals are in so that it can be investigated and resolved.” This isn’t new knowledge for Cas, “So, I was surprised that Jarvis sent it to me until I opened it and I saw your conversation with Ms. Hill.”

Ah.

Well then.

Busted.

“I’m not apologizing for that.”

Hill’s probably dealt with worse.

“And I wasn’t going to ask you to,” That’s a relief, “I actually agreed with everything you had to say.” Oh? Pepper usually doesn’t like violence. Implied or otherwise, “Though since Tony is technically the head of R&D this should’ve gone to him, not me.”  Which puts Jarvis firmly on Cas’s side with this. That’s new, “I didn’t tell J to do that but I guess he agrees too.” It likely has something to do with that time Fury incapacitated Jarvis barely a day after Stane tried to kill her father(the second time). Or that time Coulson messed with him so that he could break into Stark Tower. He’s finally using that lateral thinking she’s been trying to teach him for ages. Jarvis had to report her actions because she threatened an employee and he sent it to the ‘right’ person to handle it.

She’s so proud.

Pepper nods, “But they’re here and you know how Tony is about things he considers his responsibility.” Yeah, overkill is underrated. Her father’s going to put  _ effort _ into looking after these guys because the ones in the company are disenfranchised ‘good’ guys.

That means her choices are to assist or get out of the way.

Also meaning that until such a time that they screw up they have the benefit of Cas’s protection as well, “Hopefully they don’t all stay,” It’s possible that they won’t. Some may want to move into a quieter lifestyle and actually retire. They all have new names and SSNs at this point so they can.

Then there’s the other possibility, “Sure, where else would they go?” Pepper asks.

Well, “Other than the countryside? I saw that the CIA took some so they could try their luck with other agencies and then there’s Shield.” 

“Shield is a defunct agency, Cassie,” Wow, Pepper almost sounds convinced. Another thing Rogers spectacularly failed at. Shield didn’t die either. It looks like they have another thing in common with Hydra.

“Mhmmm,” Cas nods along, “And I totally didn’t see any communications from Coulson regarding potential Hydra activity in Eastern Europe around the former Iron Curtain.” Was that meant to entice her into joining them on a merry romp a stone’s throw away from Russian borders while blowing stuff up with her American friends? 

Seems intelligent for the broken and faded remains of an intelligence organization.

“I didn’t hear about that at all,” Pepper smiles sharply, “But I think a lot of them are going to stay on with us. I heard them saying that they traded one Stark for another.”

Uhhhh, “Well, I’m offended by that and technically Howard founded both.” She doesn’t like the implication that Shield and Stark Industries are cut from the same cloth. They’re not. Stark Industries is a part of advancing the entire world not skulking about in the shadows. 

Pepper shakes her head, “Stop getting me off topic,” Worth a shot, “It’s nice that you’re trying to look out for Tony but remember that you’re the child, not him.”

Pshh, “Did you forget I’m twenty five?” It’s not like they had time to celebrate, “I’m an old demigod now. Most of us die by my age.” That’s not strictly accurate anymore given the sharply increasing survival rates among baby demigods however it’s going to take years for it to average out.

What light had been present in Pepper’s expression fades so Cas feels a little guilty about that, “No, I didn’t forget but thank you for bringing that up. Just...try not to get paranoid okay.”

That’s kind of hard, “In this instance, they were literally out to get me.” Again, Cas made the Project Insight list. Somehow Hydra was convinced that Zeus couldn’t shoot them out of the skies. Ha. Maybe they thought her Aegis shielding could protect them. It’s flattering and entirely unsubstantiated but maybe she should set up a stronger field using an arc reactor and have Jason and Thor go at it. That would be fun.

Though Thor isn’t around currently. He does travel off world for Asgard things since he’s still crown prince even if he’s chosen to delay taking the throne from his father(To play house with a mortal that he’s going to outlive by millenia but hey...still a better love story than Twilight).

She makes a note for later.

“Hydra was,” Pepper emphasizes this point, “Shield was working with you to improve their methodology.” Fury was working with her. There’s a difference but he’s dead and she has a ship full of his former eyes and ears.

Cas decides to just concede to the Queen, “I’m not going to keep pressuring them. I know our new employees were put through the ringer,” In some cases she saw it. In a few too many cases she was too late, “So no, I’m not going to give them the evil eye every time we cross paths but I wanted to make sure Ms. Hill understands where she stands with me.” Again, these people got screwed over by an authority that promised them they were on the right side. That soft spot she inherited from her father sympathizes with their plight...but they’re Shield.

Pepper rolls her eyes, “Not just you,” Oh? “Happy’s been giving them the look,” Awww, that’s funny, “But you’re a lot more intimidating than he is so take it easy Cas. You’re not alone.” Thank the gods for that.

_ “Hey kid,”  _ Her father’s voice comes in through the intercom(Their version of an intercom),  _ “Come upstairs, I’ve got a surprise for you.” _

How about no, “I don’t like surprises.” Looks like he’s home. Cool.

_ “You’ll like this one. I promise. So make it quick,” _ And then he hangs up.

Cas looks up at Pepper because she’s not about to run off from their limited private time together. Pepper’s not having it though, “Go Cassie. If you keep him waiting he’s just going to call back.”

Accurate.

She takes the lo mein with her though. Let the people stare as she makes her way to an elevator with a chinese food carton. 

~~~

She finishes the lo mein during the ride up the elevator at which point Cas pesters Jarvis for details and hints about this alleged surprise. He’s uncooperative. When the doors open Cas tosses her garbage into one of the cans in the room before making her presence more apparent, “Old man, you’d better have brought me a cool souvenir or something.” What’s something cool that one can only get in Brazil? Assuming that’s where her father was.

Cas makes her way through the space and towards her father’s bay entrance. Since he flew home he’s probably still somewhere around there in the thus far unused ‘Avengers’ areas of the penthouse floors.

“Not a souvenir,” He says so she knows she’s headed in the right direction, “And isn’t my presence gift enough.”

Cas laughs as she round the corner, “No, I need material proof of my father’s love for me.”

“Damn,” He tosses right back, “Fresh out of that.” Eh, oh well. He’s a bit tanner than last she saw him so it looks like Brazil was correct. He managed to catch some sunshine while smoothing whatever feathers he ruffled down there, “Come here.”

She walks right into an embrace and sighs. It’s good that he’s home again. The past few weeks (...months) have been really straining for the both of them and they’ve snapped at each other more than once. That everything is beginning to slow down again is very reassuring, “So now that I’ve come all the way up here, what’s my surprise?” Cas steps back and looks around.

“It should be arriving right about….now,” Her father looks over towards his still open landing pad, “Come on in, Point Break.” What? No way! Cas had no idea he was back on Earth.

She grins as Thor comes flying in via hammer and lands a few feet in front of her, “Thor!” She heads right on over and clasps forearms with him. It’s been a while since she saw him and surprisingly enough she did miss this ‘god.’ He’s just so enthusiastic about everything he chooses to do and she counts him as a friend now.

“Cassandra!” As always, his grip is a little too tight but it doesn’t dim her smile. 

“When did you get back from Asgard?” She can’t be that much out of the loop on what the science team is up to. Maybe, “Is Jane here?” If she is that would be convenient because Cas has some updates for her on the deep space monitoring front. Hopefully, Jane has something for her on the Soul Forge front. Given the recent upheaval, Cas would be far more comfortable if demigods could be quickly identified even without a satyr being present.

Hydra wasn’t the first and they won’t be the last group interested in exploiting young enhanced for personal gain but sadly it is not to be, “No, I am only recently arrived and Jane was needed elsewhere. She is much in demand amongst this world's astronomers.” At least he sounds proud of his lady love.

But Cas is really going to need to hammer out some time with Jane. Hydra and Shield don’t get to take over her life. She has other goals, “Too bad. I would’ve loved to show Darcy the new game room we put in Lamark High-Rise.” She mentioned she likes pacman and the room was Annabeth's busy project to take her mind off of Hydra.

He nods before releasing her, “Perhaps another time,” Then he turns to her father, “Have the others arrived yet?” Huh? She follows Thor’s example and looks to her father for an explanation.

“Bruce is around here somewhere,” Her father ignores her telepathic questions regarding what Thor’s asking about, “The others should be here any minute.” What’s this about? She just crosses her arms and awaits further explanation because Cas refuses to give her father the satisfaction of knowing this is annoying her. He caves first and explains with an eye roll, “Captain America called a meeting.”

Oh, “For your super secret boy band that doesn’t exist anymore?”

“First of all,” Poor Thor is in the background during this. He just gives up usually when Cas and her father start talking in front of him. There are better ways to pick up human culture, “I was never a member,” Cas snorts but doesn’t interrupt him. Yeah...consultant….sure, “Second of all, we’re kind of on the clock so maybe not disbanded.”

Cas wrinkles her nose, “My opinion has not changed.” If anything, Shieldra has proven that the Avengers are not the best ones to protect the world since two of the ‘members’ turned the global intelligence community into swiss cheese. Yes, the gods aided and abetted that whole info dump but the gods are not a good example of modern human morality and ethics. Just take a good long look at Cas’s mother.

“I remember,” He turns and walks away, “Come on, I claimed the conference room on the thirtieth floor.” Score, that’s the one with the beanbag chair. At least something good is coming out of this. However, her initial trip was a waste of time. She could’ve finished lunch with Pepper and then gone downstairs.

Whatever. It’s her dad but truthfully, “Am I going?” She shouldn’t be, “I was an interloper not an Avenger.”

“Of course your presence is needed,” Thor doesn’t get it, “Your actions with the other demigods were vital in defeating the Chitauri.” Defeat is a strong word seeing as Cas never formally accepted a surrender from their enemies. Routed might be a better description.

“The kid means that she’s not technically an Avenger. She just showed up and did the work,” Her father explains, “Rogers wants to talk with all of us though.” He leads the way back to the elevator that literally just came from.

Ugh, Cas did in fact misjudge him. He’s a maladapted ninety year old that shouldn’t be trusted with a command until he passes some common sense classes in twenty-first century thinking.

...and she still wants to punch him in the teeth but there’s no way she’s allowed to make that much of a mess. She’ll have to control herself.

They’re all pensive on the way down to the meeting room. Probably all considering what this meeting is about….Maybe it’s regarding James B. Barnes. If Rogers does request help in tracking him down then Cas will probably help. It’s not smart to leave a potentially delusional and violent supersoldier running around the world. Gods know what he’ll get up to.

When they arrive Cas claims the beanbag chair (It’s technically some ergonomic thing that one of their employees with a muscle condition requested.) and patiently waits for the guests of honor. Bruce wanders in a few minutes later and greets Thor before moving to sit by her father.

This is where things get weird.

There is a trait that Cas was forced to learn over the years slightly but her father has never had.

Patience.

Her father does not wait for people.

Ever.

They wait ten minutes for Rogers, Romanoff, and Barton to show up. What does her father know about this meeting that she doesn’t? From the way he won’t meet her eyes he’s definitely hiding something.

When the three former Shield employees do arrive it’s with sharp nods to her father in acknowledgment and entirely serious faces. Now, Cas is certain that her father already knows the subject of this meeting which means four people in this room are on the same page and three people aren’t.

That’s not good. That’s a stacked vote right there. Something uneasy sits on Cas’s shoulders and it makes her eyes bounce around the room. Thor doesn’t notice and he enthusiastically greets the fellow ‘heroes of New York.’ Honestly, Thor’s been weird about the whole Hydra thing. He stayed in Boston for part of it but after like a month with no news he went off to one of Asgard’s realms for one reason or another. Jane knows and Cas didn’t ask(Jane was very unsettled by Hydra and very glad she works for Cas).

Bruce? He reads the room too from the questioning look he shoots Cas but she just shrugs. She has no idea what’s going on.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us today,” Rogers addresses the room. It’s not like Cas had much of a choice in the matter. She didn’t even know this was happening and it looks like Bruce didn’t either.

Thor gives him the answer he’s looking for, “We are friends and allies. I will of course come to your aid when asked.” Hmmm….she wonders how far that promise goes.

Rogers nods briefly and then continues, “As you all know, Hydra still exists as a global threat. It survived the end of Nazi Germany and it survived the fall of Shield.” Yeah, she’s noticed. Her father’s sitting back in his seat with one hand covering his mouth and one hand tensed against his knee. Wherever this happy get together is going, Cas doesn’t like it, “We have intel that puts the majority of their activity in Eastern Europe,” She’s aware of this too, “I want to call on the Avengers to put a stop to that,” What? “We can’t give them the chance to rebuild again.”

He continues to pitch this to the people in the room. Her father looks neither surprised nor conflicted. The same could be said about Barton and Romanoff but she can’t really read them with certainty. Thor is thoughtful and Bruce is uncertain but Cas? Cas keeps glancing at her father because he’s already made up his mind.

She doubts they’re in agreement on this.

After a few minutes where Rogers begins to layout the barebones of a military campaign on foreign soil without government backing (She thinks? He hasn’t mentioned it and he hasn’t mentioned finances or the manpower necessary to move like this and sort through intelligence.) then he looks at Cas and says the unforgivable, “Can you recruit any demigods that would be willing to help?” Her first thought is that he at least had the decency to call them demigods and not the ‘politically correct term’ Half-Olympians.

Her second thought is that Steve Rogers is a malaka that she  _ really _ wants to punch him in the teeth but in the interest of giving him the benefit of the doubt she asks, “Why?”

Rogers looks at her like she’s just drooled, “Having more skilled fighters on the ground will help us take Hydra apart faster.” Well, he’s not wrong but Cas has locked onto that ‘us’ he used as if they were a done deal. And looking around the room? Yeah, four vs three and one of the four is her father.

Her father blindsided her with this and that is just not okay. She’s not happy.

Nope.

“To clarify,” Cas sits up sharply and Bruce, Thor, and her father all recognize the tone she uses when talking to idiots, “You want to assemble an enhanced militia force to hunt Hydra-whom you’ve failed to destroy twice-across Europe.”

“It’s more complicated than-”

“Then uncomplicate it,” That she took from Pepper, “Yes or no, Rogers?” Everyone else just lets this happen and she has no idea as to why.

“Yes,” He sighs, “But what you have to understand is that Hydra is a very dangerous organization. They already infiltrated government organizations once,” Yeah, Shield invited them in but everyone knows who the traitors are now and will be carefully monitoring for more plants in the future, “We can’t let them recover and do it again.” She doesn’t know how they could possibly recover from this. The first Hydra infiltration was a result of a stupid move to recruit the useful enemy assets. No one’s going to try that twice.

But still, “You want to use a militia composed of mostly enhanced individuals to wage a campaign against the remains of neo-Nazi insurgents in Eastern Europe, a group composed of baseline humans.” That they know of. Cas didn’t come across any enhanced when she was evicting Hydra from America though.

“While Hydra is heavily associated with the Third Reich, their modern beliefs don’t seem to have a predisposition towards ethnic cleansing,” Romanoff says after breaking her silence as if that statement is supposed to make her feel better.

“Sure,” Cas nods along, “Just fascism which is a significant improvement. Good for them.” Hopefully everyone feels her sarcasm. Her father remains quiet as this situation continues to spiral.

“Cas, can you do it?” Rogers tries to take command of the conversation and pressure an answer out of Cas. Her eyes dart around the room towards her father who is just sitting there. Why is he just sitting there?

“No,” This is ridiculous, “No, I will not.”

“What-”

“I won’t fight Hydra with you and I will definitely advise all demigods against signing on-”

“Cas!” No way, Rogers.

“Because this is a stupid idea that could start a war. And you two,” She points at Thor and Bruce, “Thor definitely shouldn’t go. He’s an alien prince. He can’t interfere in Earth matters like this especially not when Olympus granted permissions for Asgardians to come and go. And Bruce, I don’t know if they want your brain or the ‘Other Guy’ but if it’s the ‘Other Guy’ then they’re stupid. Him smashing his way through baseline humans for vigilante justice is a recipe for disaster.” She’s taken the menfolk by surprise. Her father is still unmoved.

Romanoff is similarly unaffected, “How is this different from what you were doing up until a few weeks ago?”

Cas actually snorts, “The difference is that those horrible weeks were disaster control. This is a planned and likely prolonged campaign.” She points behind herself to demonstrate the difference, “That was a reaction to an attack but this a war against Hydra because Rogers is miffed that they won’t stay dead.” Or he’s searching for purpose again but can’t he find that while hunting his little buddy down?

Rogers looks insulted and starts defending himself, “The standard teams and law enforcement aren’t capable of handling a threat like Hydra."

Okay, “Then help them. You can’t just take over their jobs because you believe that you can do better.” If he was suggesting aid and work with local authorities she’d consider it but that would make fighting Hydra entirely dependent on gaining approval from foreign governing bodies. Rogers isn’t willing to wait for that. He wants to move out and well...blitz them.

Not happening.

“I can’t trust that Hydra hasn’t infiltrated them. We’d be endangering ourselves and the mission,” Rogers defends.

She laughs in his face, “So your solution is illegal entry and then firebombing alleged Hydra encampments.” They’ve already established that Hydra has been flushed from seats of power so how could anything leak to them?

“Not alleged. These are known Hydra bases.” This has deteriorated into a legitimate argument. They’re arguing.

Uh-huh, “And what happens after you capture a base?” And why isn’t anyone else asking questions? Why is Bruce suddenly acting the wallflower again? Where is Thor’s loud and boisterous voice?

At least Rogers looks confused, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I hope that your plan isn’t to kill and destroy everything in full salt the earth tactics,” The horrified face Rogers is making tells her that he doesn’t plan to do that. Good, “If it isn’t then I’d really like to know what you plan to do with the captured Hydra agents and all of the evidence. Unless you plan to make use of Shield’s old and shut down black site prison, the Rat. Hey, didn’t Peggy Carter have that made?” Or maybe they’ll use the Vault. That was the hole in Alaska where Shield stashed Emil Blonsky a.k.a. The Abomination in cryo. Somehow Ross got away with his complicity there by saying he didn’t know where Shield was taking the ‘consenting’ lab rat. Gods, that’s going to be someone else’s mess to deal with and she wishes them luck.

Given context supplied by Bruce after having known him for a while….that bastard Ross freaking knew. The whole world would know it too if Bruce wasn’t so against a lot of his past getting out. Whatever, if she went after everyone who willingly worked with Shield before the Hydra reveal she’d have to walk herself and her father to the gallows first.

Though the possibility of blacksite prisons should in theory be against Roger’s ideals. It’s very against Cas’s ideals.

Rogers is angry now and she’s very glad for that but before he can open his mouth probably giving her an opening to tear him apart her father opens his, “We can liaise with local governments and clean up after ourselves. Turn everything over after.” That sounds like bullshit to her. Those people would walk with a good lawyer in the US but she can’t attest to the state of the justice system in whatever countries Hydra is crawling around in.

However….however, her father is defending Rogers. Why? 

She knows why….She doesn’t understand though and she’s starting to feel cornered.

Thankfully, Thor and Bruce seem to be hesitating but they’re adults. Cas can’t decide for them, “I’m out and so are the demigods.” She can speak for herself and the others. They trust her and honestly, she doesn’t think any demigods are stupid enough to sign on to this. Cas stands and turns to leave the room.

She’s surprised when Barton speaks up, “Hey Dr. Stark, what about Loki’s scepter?”

Oh no...they didn’t. Please, someone tell her that they didn’t lose the scepter with the ancient universal power inside of it, “You lost it?”

“Technically, Hydra always had it,” Romanoff says.

Great, “I figured Fury buried it in a hole with just him and the shovel knowing the location.” And then he shot the shovel just to be safe. She gets no reassurance from the audience. This only slightly changes things, “If you want to track that down and call me to help reclaim it then I’m in but that’s all you get from me. I’m sure Bruce and dad can easily set another tracking algorithm provided that Hydra hasn’t buried it behind multiple feet of lead.” Magic/ancient/god-like power transcends borders. The Oracle Cloud is more than capable of detecting an energy spike like Loki’s scepter after all the data they got during the convergence assuming that the scepter isn’t contained in an insulated location.

She makes it to the doorknob before Rogers tries to change her mind, “What about your father? You’re not going to try and convince him?”

Oh….she’s pissed. Cas turns and glares, “Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. Dad already knew and had his mind made up before you arrived. Be grateful he’s decided to help you for some reason.” She’s not gentle with the door when she leaves.

How dare he. How dare the spies. How dare Hydra. And what in Hades is her father thinking?

~~~

Her father is well aware that she’s mad at him. She can tell because he hesitates at the edge of the gym as she runs though a few balance beam routines rather aggressively. However, all things come to an end and Cas sticks the final landing with a dull thud.

“I’ll never get tired of seeing that,” Her father says like she didn’t just spend the last couple of hours working out her frustration via gymnastics. Contrary to popular belief, Cas does not weapons train alone when furious. It’s a bad idea because it makes people more prone to mistakes.

Anyway, she ignores him, “J, what’s the verdict?”

_ “I rate that last routine with a score of 9.6,” _ So close to that illusive ten. Jarvis has turned into a tough crowd over the years.

“Send the evaluation to my device, please,” She’ll review the details later once she’s calmer. For now she starts stretching.

Her father isn’t one to be ignored though, “Rogers plans to take advantage of the facilities now. The ‘superhero clubhouse’ is finally going to see some use.” Wonderful, her father finally gets his superhero sitcom.

He’s trying to wind her up, “You lied to me.” He let her walk into that room blind and she did not like that surprise.

“Based on the intel we should probably be able to dismantle what’s left of Hydra in a year. Maybe.” That’s what he has to say in response.

She finally turns to face him, “Did you even talk to Pepper about this?” Cas knows the answer to that one too but she wants to hear him say it.

“No,” Ha. Cas rolls her eyes and makes her way to where she left a towel and water, “But this is happening. Good job convincing Point Break and Bruce to step back. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to.”

Sorry….what? “Excuse me?”

Her father is unaffected, “You’re right about them getting involved. When we locate the scepter they’ll be excellent backup-maybe while avoiding letting Bruce get too close to the mind control stick-but until then it’s not a good idea to have them directly involved.” His hands are in his pockets and his shoulders are loose. He’s hiding feelings from her. Her father has one heck of a poker face but he’s always moving his hands(so is she). Still, she can tell he’s content with the way things turned out.

This is the way he wanted it to go.

“You manipulated me.” He used her.

“If I’d told you beforehand would it have changed your opinion?”

“No,” Of course not, “I probably wouldn’t have even gone.”

“And Bruce and Thor would have succumbed to the patriot’s call.” That’s not justification.

He can’t do that to her, “You lied to me.” Her father doesn’t lie to her not since she came forward about who she is to him.

He nods, “I know but I wanted Rogers to know you were off the table.” Her father wanted her to tear into Rogers so he wouldn’t want her around more than strictly necessary. She’ll question his ‘orders’ left and right for the rest of forever because of his actions with Shield. She’d be stupid not to. He’s unlikely to want an uncooperative team member.

Cas lets out a harsh breath but she tries, she really tries, to moderate her tone. She wants to understand what’s happening in her father’s brain right now, “You should be too. This is a bad idea.”

“Probably,” One of his hands escapes his pocket and passes over his face, “But I can’t sit back and let Hydra regroup.”

Why? This makes no sense, “So you’ve decided to tell foreign countries that not only are they incapable of controlling terror groups within their borders but you're going to go in and do it for them without permission.”

“That’s pretty much what I did initially, kid,” He’s being difficult.

And that’s only true to a point, “You targeted ill gotten Stark Industries weapons, not groups, and you started working directly with the military not long after.” He has government contracts. Privatizing world peace wasn’t a joke he threw around. Her father was literally a living breathing nuclear deterrent for a number of countries with a Stark Industries presence for a while. He still is but the idea of him is enough and Rhodey takes care of the rest.

“Point,” He nods and walks closer since she’s not about to blow up in his face at the moment.

This doesn’t make sense. Maybe she can still change his mind, “Assuming that the countries don’t get pissed off that Americans-minus Romanoff and Thor-are starting fights within their borders it’s hardly good policy to rely on enhanced outsiders to deal with their shit for them. If they do accept your ‘help’ and become reliant it’s only going to weaken them in the long run.” What happens when the day comes, shit hits the fan, and the Avengers don’t show up?

“Also true,” He comes to a stop in front of her.

What other problems does she have with this set up? Ah, yes, “I don’t trust them with the Armageddon 2.0 knowledge and I don’t trust them with the primordial space rock info either.” She hasn’t even told Thor what the scepter, Tesseract, and god catalyst really are. She isn’t sure how he’d react and telling foreign royalty before she tells her own planet seems like a bad decision.

“Not yet,” Not yet he says? That’s not going to change. She has a solid amount of good people on that already. She doesn’t need to include the response team in planning. They’re bad at it. She can throw them at the enemy when the time comes just like Fury did, “But that may change after I work with them.”

Like he has the final say in who gets brought in, “Fine,” If he wants to be dramatic about this then she can too, “What’s the mighty point that’s made you ignore logic?”

“You,” What? “Hydra tried to have you killed. They tried to go after you and all the other super-kiddies. I won’t allow that.”

Off all the stupid, “Don’t use me as an excuse to start a heroic grudge match against the crazy Nazis.”

His face hardens, “This isn’t a grudge match, Cassie,” It looks like one, “They tried to have you killed and I’m not letting them get away with it. I don’t want you involved more than you have been.” Well, Cas laughs in his face. What’s one more group wanting her dead? “Then there’s the fact that they have access to technology we engineered,” That cuts her off with a choke, “Trust me when I say you don’t want to see what you built in the hands of the bad guys.”

“I’m involved and we didn’t make any weapons for Shield. They have some jets. Throw Rogers at them. He’s great at crashing aircraft.” But there’s still another problem, “Where is the backing from this coming from? It’s not Shield and it’s not DC.”

“The financials aren’t going to be a problem,” She was afraid he’d say that. He plans to privately back a militia force. That’s just a brilliant idea especially when people still whisper about them hoarding demigods and now former Shield employees.

She tries one more time because she doesn’t really care about the money, “This is clearly about more than beating the bad guys. Rogers didn’t make noise about the Mandarin or any other extremist groups. He sat back and watched with Shield. Hydra’s a personal agenda for him, not altruistic.” Her father just nods. Cas goes digging in her brain for more reasons that this is a really very bad idea. They’re there.

But all of this is adding up to be too much. Her father lied and manipulated her into ensuring the outcome he wanted here. He’s agreeing with Rogers to hunt Hydra remnants. This is too much too soon after dealing with the info dump and all of the Shield agents currently in Stark Industries.

She’s mad and frustrated, “You know, it’s funny. Didn’t your dad run around after Captain America? Must be a father/son thing.” It just came out. Sharp. She regrets it after she finishes saying it.

Her father's face closes off even more and in what’s probably reflexive response to protect himself he says, “No, it’s a shared love of heroic charity cases.” He jolts right after and so does Cas.

“Charity case, huh?” She’s never intended to be that. She never went to him in search of money. Cas also knows that she fired shots first.

“Cassie, I didn’t-”

“I’m going to Long Island for a few days,” She needs out. It’s…. she knows he didn’t  _ really _ mean it like that. He can’t have. He loves her. He’s said so and she’s only ever heard him say it to her and Pepper. It’s special that he says it.

“Yeah,” Her father says to her back because she’s already leaving, “Probably for the best.” Whatever. She wishes him luck in telling Pepper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you really know and love someone you know where the soft spots are.
> 
> When you've been fighting all your life it becomes hard to hold back eventually even when you love that person.
> 
> It's about time I spiced up the conflict a bit though, right?


	34. Foresight's Not All that Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot of set up for the next one and I hope you all like.
> 
> ...don't be over attached to my version of a prophecy....I'm not overjoyed with what I put out lol and it might be changed subtly.
> 
> If it is I'll let you know.

Cas is not moping. She’s relaxing in Camp Half-Blood after Chiron patiently relieved her of training duties for the duration of her stay.

She’s also taken over one of the TV rooms and is completely avoiding the baby demigods that gape at her when she walks past. 

Her father must have told Pepper and everyone else where she went because she hasn’t received any calls or notifications. She wonders what he told them. Cas also wonders what the Avengers think of her argument. She sincerely hopes that they take what she said under advisement or the consequences could be severe for all of them. After all of the work Cas put into getting the demigods accepted she doesn’t want widespread fear of the enhanced to throw them back into the Dark Ages. 

Even if technically speaking her father, Barton, and Romanoff aren’t enhanced physically, their skills, abilities, and toys allow them to make the cut. (Just ignore the fact that her father has some slightly above averageness from his heart surgery. Not like anyone but them knows.)

Whatever.

She’s actively trying not to think about any of this while lounging on a couch that’s older than she is with her legs flung over the side. Absolute cinematic brilliance is on the TV right now.

“Gees,” Piper stands in the doorway with a plastic bag and spoons dangling between her fingers, “Got room for one more?” Huh? Her eyes and expression look off….Cas nods but rather than sit up she just lifts her legs for Piper to sit under, “So what’s wrong with you? You only watch Kill Bill when you’re upset and want to stab someone.”

Hmmm, it’s concerning that those states happen together enough to form a pattern of behavior for her “My dad….what’s going on with you?” Rather than answer immediately Piper hands Cas a spoon and a pint of cookies and cream. It’s going to be a challenge to eat this without making a mess but she has abs of steel.

Piper settles in with her own pint of chocolate brownie and even has a full scoop before answering, “I broke up with Jason.”

Huh, it’s just been bad days all around, “Okay.” Cas carefully starts eating her own ice cream. They’ll trade in a little bit.

“It’s for real this time,” Right, “Like I know we’re not getting back together. We’re not going to work out.” Awww, but Clark Kent and Lois Lane. She liked the image but a glance at Piper from the corner of her eye shows her best friend straining to remain neutral.

“You want to talk about it?”

Piper stares down into her ice cream for a minute, “Irreconcilable differences,” Huh, “He grew up in New Rome surrounded by gods and all that old stuff. He wants to live more for that, his dad-given mission to support the minor gods and unify the camps, and I don’t.”

Cas doesn’t get it, “I grew up surrounded by it too. We don’t have a problem.” At least this is giving her another issue to focus on.

“You live in the mortal world actively and you come here but you don’t sit in just one,” She fiddles with Cas’s shoelace, “I didn't know I was a demigod until I was seventeen. It’s different. I want to live in the mortal world, not New Rome. Jason doesn’t get that.” Which would explain why they’d been arguing over all of those social media things that are more relevant to mortals.

Cas nods, “Seems fair,” Maybe Kill Bill isn’t the best movie for this environment anymore, “Want me to put something else on?”

“No, Lucy Liu kicks ass in this,” So true. They sit in amiable silence with their ice cream being traded back and forth as O-Ren Ishii solidifies her authority over the other crime bosses via spontaneous decapitation.

Mostly silent...for example, “Hey genius, do you know when Peleus got an Instagram?” Nope. But she saw it. Evidently, at one point or another, a regular human child challenged a demigod to prove that dragons exist.

“Princess,” Cas doesn’t deign to answer this seriously, “I gave them the phones but I am not the governing authority on how they’re used.” But they mostly just watch a Tarantino masterpiece with the occasional idle chatter. 

Then, “So what’d you and your dad fight about that has you hiding here?” Piper strikes. It’s possible she wants another problem other than Jason to think about.

Cas has been thinking a lot about this, “The Avengers are going on tour to hunt the remains of Hydra. Dad intentionally hid information from me to keep me out of it.”

“Wow,” Piper doesn’t particularly sound amazed, “Outside of all the reasons that’s a potentially very bad idea,” It’s a bad idea no matter how it’s laid out, “It must suck to have people intentionally keep information from you in order to protect you.” However, she doesn’t know if it’s the better or worse option in the situation yet which is leaving her conflicted and recalcitrant about the whole thing. Is it better to leave those countries to fight Hydra alone? Realistically, Hydra should require a multi-governmental coalition and when they’re done they can go back to hating each other. It’s like the Greeks vs the Persians. The ancient Greeks fought each other all the time but when the Persians attacked they all worked together just long enough to beat them. 

Bringing down Hydra is a job that needs to be done but a small team of mostly Americans….It’s not awesome.

Her dad though….

Cas sighs and lets her head fall back against the couch, “Pipes….”

“Not that you would know anything about doing that so it must really hurt to have it happen to you out of nowhere.”

“It’s not just that….” She’s come to see the hypocrisy of some of her previous anger but Cas never expressly kept his father in the dark to get him to do something for her. She’s working on forgiving him for that but, “Dad and I set boundaries for demigods stuff verses Iron Man stuff years ago.” With promises to keep the other in the loop as much as possible. A terrorist group in Europe is closer to Iron Man’s zone of influence than hers but he should’ve spoken to her ahead of time.

Honestly, she’ll take any chance to verbally rip into Steve Rogers. The guy requires constant hits to his confidence so she doesn’t think she’d have acted differently if she’d known beforehand. Unless her father didn’t want her to run into the room already swinging….but he could have asked her to hear Rogers out before snapping at him.

Piper nods, “So why are you here? Usually when you and your dad get into it you hug it out like an hour later.” Yeah, because they don’t like being upset with the other, not when they’ve only had a handful of years in each other’s lives.

“I may have made an observation comparing my dad to his dad with regards to Captain America intentionally in order to cause harm,” She feels ashamed of it now but what he said in response still really stings. 

Cas doesn’t look up but she hears Piper take a slow breath, “You intentionally compared your dad to the man that neither of you will refer to as your grandfather even though he is.” Nowadays, Cas only refers to Howard Stark as her grandfather when she has to like in front of Fury or in an interview. Meanwhile, her father has never referred to his father as her grandfather. Not once.

Almost no one knows that but they can’t have any blood in the water for the sharks.

Cas agrees with her father on this, “From what I know the man barely qualifies as a dad for my dad,” One home video calling her father his ‘greatest creation’ doesn’t make up for the years Howard devoted to anything but his family and his son. Maria Stark, on the other hand, is held in the highest regard, “But I just have this really bad feeling. The whole plan is slipshod at best and Rogers…” She doesn’t view him as a reliable leader but that’s just an excuse for what she said.

“Good job, Cassie.” Yeah.

Now the harder part, “He responded by comparing me to Captain America and calling us charity cases.”

Piper pats Cas’s knee, “He didn’t mean that. Your dad loves you.” 

“I know,” She says, “I’m sorry about Jason.”

“It’s a long time coming,” Was it? Cas really isn’t sure, “We’ve been on and off for years and what we want out of life is completely divergent from the other.” Cas just nods along because this is Piper’s domain, “Want to invite Annabeth? We can make this a ladies night out.”

Sounds like a plan, “Sure.” But after the Bride kills O-Ren.

Their fight is one of Cas’s favorite fight scenes in all of cinema. It’s dramatic, over the top, and absolutely gorgeous. The way O-Ren goes from mocking the Bride to acknowledging her as an equal is beautiful.

However, this doesn’t happen.

Instead, “Prophecy!” A shrill, young, and unfamiliar voice starts yelling. Hearing a child yelling in Camp Half-Blood isn’t exactly concerning, it's pretty normal. They also have some fairly young kids running around now that still play pretend and believe that getting a quest is cool and fun instead of terrifying and stressful. They pretend to go on the quests that are the subject of the night time campfire stories. Well, as long as they’re learning the stories that might save their lives one day Cas doesn’t mind, “Prophecy! There’s a new prophecy! Rachel has a new prophecy!” That is not a reenactment of Penthesilea verses Achilles(Cas maintains that without his dip in the River Styx, Achilles would never have beaten an Amazon queen) or something like it.

That’s not playing. Piper and Cas exchange looks but are quick to pause the movie and run towards the source of the yelling with their ice cream. It’s not going to waste. They find Rachel outside walking from her Oracle cave, eye’s glowing and green smoke trailing from her nose and mouth. There’s a crowd forming around her and this is kind of unusual.

People go to the Oracle to receive prophecies. The Oracle of Delphi doesn’t take it’s vessel on a merry stroll to the middle of a group of demigods. Not often anyway….not unless it’s something big like when the previous Oracle had a message to give Zoe Nightshade.

However, that’s what’s happening. It looks like an image that should be preserved in marble. Given the diverse group standing around at present, someone has to have the artistic talent to immortalize this because the kids recording this are so not getting their way. Thankfully, everyone has the common sense to listen when Cas yells, “Put your phones down!” They don’t need this ending up on YouTube or something like that, “You,” Cas points to an especially tiny bambi eyed kid, “Go find Chiron and a senior Apollo camper.” Rachel’s always a little disoriented right after a prophecy.

A non-existent wind pulls at Rachel’s hair and paint stained clothes and when she speaks her voice echoes:

__

_ An empire crumbled from old lies _

_ For the lost hero with empty eyes _

_ Must stand with new friends and foes alike _

_ Or be crushed beneath the coming strike _

_ The half-bloods raise arms in one fury _

_ Beneath the banner of victory _

_ A choice between the head or the heart _

_ Will decide the battle from the start _

That….

That was not a particularly hopeful prophecy and it definitely wasn’t a limerick. 

Rachel’s eyes clear and she briefly stumbles before looking around, “I’m not sleep walking, am I?”

“No,” Piper says, “I recorded it though in case you forgot what you just said.” Good thinking on that front, Piper. But it’s unlikely. Cas thinks that it might be a passive ability of all demigods but prophecies just sort of etch themselves in their own little memory corner of a demigod’s brain. Like bad song lyrics or a jingle from a commercial.

Chiron makes his way over as Cas and Piper are trying to convince Rachel to have some ice cream. It fixes so many problems and the sugar can’t hurt at this point. Afterwards, they load Rachel onto Chiron’s back and make their way to the Big House.

They record the prophecy and Cas really tries not to dig into it. It invites trouble, particularly line six, “It could just mean that they won.” And Cas really did not mean to say that out loud as others in the room speculate but she doesn’t like the idea of having a banner.

Chiron indulges her, “You are correct. The whole prophecy could be allegorical. Afterall, I am unaware of any new empires springing up.” No, but Rhea and the Triumvirate equated large corporations to empires a few years ago...no.

She needs to stop and not think about this.

So Cas gets up to return to her movie but not before she says, “Do me a favor and contact the Romans. Make sure that they have it too.” That prophecy can sit in archives for the next few decades because she wants nothing to do with it.

In an effort to preserve her sanity, Cas decides to take another day for herself at Camp Half-Blood. It’s really fun to be there now as an adult. It’s also a nice ego boost to have the young heroes whisper about her when she goes by now that she’s sorted some things out. Her trip was salvaged when a little son of Bia, the goddess of might and sister to Nike, walks up to her and asks, “Can we get a skate park in the camp?” By little she means like thirteen but Cas has twelve years on this kid.

This is funny for a couple of reasons:

First, Bia is known for being quiet but powerful. Rarely does she say anything but when Zeus tasked her and her siblings to chain Prometheus, Bia was the only one strong enough to hold him down. So having her son, Jabrill, be the one out of his little following of friends to talk to Cas is entertaining to say the least. It’s possible they thought she would agree because they’re cousins on the divine side which is even funnier since no one seriously acknowledges those connections. She gives them props for trying.

Second, they came to ask her about adding a structure to the camp that has been redesigned, layed out, and expanded by Annabeth Chase. Ha, Cas likes living and she will not agree out of nowhere to any changes or additions. When it comes to building the camp, Cas is there to make sure everything is up to date and works. Also, she brings in any technology they might need.

The actual architecture, like the newer massive banquet pavilion(dining pavilion is too small a name for this structure that can house a dinner for the whole camp at maximum capacity), is all Annabeth and her pre approved architecture savvy assistants.

Rather than laugh at the quiet boy Cas asks, “Why do you want it?” There’s probably a skate park nearby or something they can get a ride to.

He turns to look at his friends as if to get assurance and they all nod at him, “We heard that Percy Jackson skates,” Oh...this is amazing, “We thought if we had one then he’d teach us.”

All is right in the world again and Cas smiles, “Alright, bring me something I can take to Annabeth. Where’s it going? How big will it be? What will it need materials wise? And I’ll see what I can do. I promise.” These demigod kids want a skate park in the camp. When Cas was them sized she was up to her eyeballs in training and college so this is a miracle. She’ll get them a skate park and hand deliver Percy if she can.

It’s entirely possible that these guys have an inflated idea of how good Percy is on a skateboard. He can skate but Cas’s never seen him in an actual skate park. However, there’s no way she’s going to let him not show up if they do build a little skate area in the camp.

So it goes that Cas manages to decompress in Camp Half-Blood mostly….

Circa four in the morning about three and a half hours before she plans to be awake, Cas is awakened by a very familiar noise. It would be more at home on a Star Wars set(And what rock has Cas been existing under that she only heard about Episode VII three weeks ago….) than Camp Half-Blood.

It’s also the sound of a Chitauri Weapon….the same weapons that were locked away during cleanup in the joint venture with the federal government, Stark Industries, and….Shield.

Fuck.

She practically flies out of bed and sprints out into the night towards the hearth fire praying that no one is hurt and that no young demigods have attacked the cleaning harpies that enforce curfew. The scene Cas finds is about what she expected and dreaded.

There are three demigods probably around sixteen and she doesn’t recognize a single one of them but she does recognize the space rifle in the center boy’s hands. He has the Chitauri rifle pointed at the Harpies that are squawking and threatening the campers to get back to their bunks.

“Hey!” Cas yells causing the chatter to stop, “Ladies, go get Chiron for us. We don’t want to bring Mr. D into this.” That’s how kids get turned into dolphins. There are lights coming on all around the camp now and soon curiosity is going to drag everyone out of windows and doors. The Harpies acknowledge who she is and grudgingly leave but now Cas turns her attention to the kids who seem to have realized the shit they’ve walked into, “Before Chiron gets here, tell me. Where’d you get that?” Not that long ago Cas was pulling a prank on drunk college age people in Salem now she’s playing the role of Mr. Filch. The mighty have fallen.

The ringleader holding the gun squares his shoulder and looks her in the eye. She just stands there with her arms crossed and she hopes he can detect how not in the mood for bullshit she is, “I bought it.”

Malaka….she was kind of hoping that he had found and broken into the warehouse where the Chitauri tech was stored using the info dump data. This is much worse, “Okay, give it over, Rufio,” The kid has a very impressive mohawk. She holds her hand out and for a second she thinks the kid is going to fight her on it but the look on her face changes his mind, “Do you have anything else like this?”

“No.” Not rushed. He’s tall and confident so probably not lying but Chiron will probably have a cabin check later anyway. He had one when Cas and Luke stole all the flags from the Ares cabin back in the day. Luckily, they hid them in the woods and not the cabin and they returned them after dying them a soft and gentle pink color.

However, Cas looks at his two companions, “What about you two? Any alien tech I should know about?” The girl kind of withers under Cas’s stare and pulls a small device out of her pocket and Cas takes that too, “I sincerely hope that’s all of it. Just stick to swords and bows, please. And anything the Hephaestus kids roll out of the forges.” Aren’t those enough? Why do they want space weapons?....That’s a stupid question.

“Shouldn’t we figure out how they work?” Cas is surprised that Rufio tries to defend his position, “For when they come back?”

Cas doesn’t even pretend that it’s only a possibility, “Sure,” She’s quick to continue and squash those hopeful little delinquent faces, “But there are labs and professionals for that. Sneaking out after curfew to play with alien weapons in the woods isn’t helping anyone.” Least of all the three amigos in front of her. Some advancements in her father’s and her tech have been a result of studying and reverse engineering Chitauri leftovers. Her Aegis matrix came from somewhere and not just the Tesseract portal device.

She pockets what she really wants to believe isn’t a grenade when she hears Chiron approaching. There’s some other adult demigods with him. They’re probably the additional aid he called in to care for the influx of children over the last few years.

“Thank you, Cassandra. It’s always messy when the harpies try to do their job,” Yeah, it’s always unfortunate when the harpies try to eat a kid in the middle of the night, “Riku, Maribel, Timothy, what are you three doing out of bed?”

Ah….Cas remembers the days when that tone was turned on her. She definitely doesn’t miss that. She gives a little salute with the Chitauri rifle and quickly retreats back to her cabin.

She’s planning on ignoring that prophecy but she can’t turn her back on space weapons ending up on the street from a cleanup effort that she was a part of. Hopefully the NYPD won’t mind if she looks into it because she doubts that the little demigods are the only buyers.

Gods...they paid in drachme. There’s no way they could’ve bought it otherwise. Ugh...

~~~

It seems fairly obvious that following that conversation with Piper, Cas would immediately go home and try to once again talk with her dad. It should work out now that she isn’t feeling angry.

That’s not what she does.

Nope. Cas goes home instead and then goes back to Stark Industries like nothing ever happened. Well, not exactly. She refuses to touch any of the prep work for the war on Hydra but she does pick up quite a few things that aren’t going to get done because her father’s now very busy….busier.

Pepper’s content enough to let her do it so long as it gets done. Pepper is also openly disapproving of the Avengers using the tower as their base but there’s nothing for it. For Happy, it’s a logistical nightmare. Some former Shield employees volunteered for the data and support aspects of whatever set up they have going on up there and Cas has a feeling that all of the Shield people are at least loosely involved. In their position, Cas would also take a chance for a shot at Hydra but the security changes are driving Happy up the walls.

Luckily, they still have access to Mrs. Sally Jackson and all the other sane baseline humans that are used to dealing with sending enhanced loved ones unto the breach. Without that she isn’t sure that Pepper or anyone for that matter could rationalize accepting her father flying off on a private military campaign.

It’s when she’s once again taking a break in her office well away from the rest of the world and irritating people that Rhodey finds her, “I heard Tony picked up some new roommates.” He doesn’t even knock. He just comes right in and makes himself at home in the chair across from her desk.

Cas snorts, “More like squatters.” It’s not like they’ll pay rent.

“Uh-huh,” She can feel Rhodey’s eyes on her. Her hair is piled in a messy bun on her head. She probably looks pale but that’s because she hasn’t slept in a while, “So what’s going on with you and Tony?”

Nope, “Nothing.” She already talked this shit out with Piper and she will get to talking to her father when she’s ready to.

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm,” She nods and continues working her way through an update from their Berlin R&D branch regarding some ambitious tech using satellites with low-gain to act as relays and amplifiers for deep space signals. In theory they’ll be great if humanity ever reaches the level of interplanetary travel but for now she ups their resource allotment because it should be useful for detecting signals from aliens too. Meanwhile, she uses her other hand to subtly swipe away the search quadrant she has Jarvis monitoring for alien weapons dealers. 

“That’s not what I heard,” Cas looks up at Rhodey finally but he’s sitting far too comfortably. He’s sounding way too nonchalant too, “Tony actually called me the other day saying he messed up and that you hate him.”

“What?” What kind of logic is that? What kind of gossip chain is this? “No, I don’t.” What he said hurt but she said stuff too. Honestly, it’s amazing that they made it this long without having an argument like that. She’s still very against this whole thing but she’s not going to cut her father out over this.

Rhodey sits there in silence and while he doesn’t do anything she feels so judged, “Then why haven’t you spoken to him yet?”

Nope.

Nuh-uh.

If Cas wanted his advice she would’ve sought him out, “I will when I’m ready.”

“Will that be before or after he starts taking care of Hydra?” It’s very frustrating that Rhodey is so calm about this.

Actually, he’s a little too calm about this. Rhodey is usually the first in line to call out her father when he’s gone too far. She says first in line because Pepper will already be there with a prepared list of all the things he didn’t think about. It’s impressive because her dad does think about a lot but there’s always something. It keeps him humble….that’s a lie, “Shouldn’t your superiors be up in arms about this whole thing?” Sure, America makes a habit of sticking their noses where they don’t belong but this can’t be something they’re willing to associate with. Yet in this situation it’s not like they have a choice when Captain  _ America _ is leading the charge.

“Officially yes,” Rhodey says reluctantly, “But unofficially there’s a few people glad that someone’s tackling the Hydra problem.”

Hmmmm…., “And your stance?” His opinion is very important on something like this.

There’s a reaction. Rhodey sits up straighter, “I think that it’s good the bad guys are being taken down but this is an interesting precedent. If they do well it’ll set the stage for further cooperation and maybe some more support from our guys with joint assistance from other countries. Hydra is everyone’s problem,” Oh...that’s not unrealistic. It worked for George Washington. The French didn’t waste support on the Revolution’s cause until he proved the colonies could bring in some victories. When they did commit they started wailing on their shared opponent, England, with relish. Spain joined in too. The Avengers do a good job taking down Hydra and other countries may want in on the winnings as well which could help rebuild some trust over the remains of a smoldering enemy, “On the other hand, that much power in the hands of such a small group is...something.”

That’s a shared concern they have, “Not unlike how Hydra claimed that their small capable governing body could lead the world better than everyone else?”

“I don’t think that the Avengers are going to use a computer code to execute however many million people they need to take over,” Rhodey says and it’s very sad that they live in a world where that sentence makes sense, “I trust Tony.” That’s not her issue. She trusts her father, “And I know you do too, so what's your problem?” The rest of the world does not trust her father like she does.

Also, she looks around the room as she tries to pull up the words in a way that doesn’t sound completely horrible, “I don’t trust Rogers with a command.” 

Rhodey crosses his arms, “You don’t trust Rogers with a command when he led the Howling Commandos during WWII.”

That’s taking her words out of context, “He was a field commander. He carried out objectives that were given to him by...what’s his name,” She waves her hand around as she tries to remember but luckily Rhodey takes pity on her.

“Colonel Phillips.”

“Yes,” She points at him, “That guy. He’s the one who assigned the missions. The Howling Commandos were his Hydra wrecking crew but Phillips picked sites, approved plans, and allocated resources and funds.”

Rhodey tilts head and seems to think this over, “You don’t think he can do the whole job.”

Nope, “He told me himself he’s a ‘boots on the ground guy.’ He’s a hammer not a scalpel. Look at how any missions he led turned out. Freed a battalion? Awesome, very lucky. Defeat of the Red Skull? He crashed a plane of dirty bombs in the Atlantic and didn’t kill Hydra. Confrontation of Hydra? Crashed three giant aircraft over a city and nearly destroyed the global intelligence community but still didn’t kill Hydra. As the stakes go up and more responsibility goes to him, his results get worse.” That’s a poor trend. Cas cringes when she finishes talking because that was very ranty. She just ranted at Rhodey.

She looks down while Rhodey mulls over her words, “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.” That she has, “Maybe you should put your own name forward for the job.”

What? She looks back up to see Rhodey smiling at her horrified expression, “That’s not even funny. People think ‘demigod’ and they picture me most of the time. I can’t be connected to this. That Rogers thought bringing me and some others along was a good idea tells me how unobservant and shortsighted he is.”

“Or how determined he is to end this quickly with a trustworthy and reliable team.” ...that’s fair. But even if he’s just really gung ho about  _ finally _ defeating Hydra it’s still a bad idea to bring in the demigods, “Does your dad know about all of this?”

She huffs out a dry laugh, “He’d better. I’ve been complaining about Rogers in front of him for months.” It sparked more than one of their disagreements too since he didn’t think it was relevant or worth talking about at the time.

“Which would explain why he introduced Hill to the Brass as head intelligence officer,” That’s not a bad idea, “She’ll be voluntarily providing them with updates on the Avenger’s progress in taking down Hydra.” And that will proactively smooth many a ruffled feathers….as long as the Avengers do a good job, “So Tony put a lot of thought into this too and we both know he’s not going to blindly follow Captain America,” True. Her father isn’t a follower, “Which means I gotta ask, what has you so worried?”

She feels very called out again, “I don’t know. I really don’t know but something about all of this is just a horrible idea. I haven’t been this sure that a plan was shitty since I watched Annabeth ride off with Tiberinus and Rhea Silvia.” But what can she do? Her father already committed to this and it’s not like she can literally stop this from happening. Plus, she needs to stay on top of things here. The registration front is making waves again. There are alien weapons in the streets. A new prophecy is floating around the back of her mind like a particularly stubborn gnat. Ultron is still a bust but like Germany just proved, there are ways for her to prepare for the inevitable.

Rhodey’s eyes widen, “That was before…” He trails off but slowly points to the floor and Cas nods. It’s easy enough to interpret what that means, “Then shouldn’t you be backing Tony up? He might need the help.”

She covers her face and leans back in her chair, “You know, I’d love to do that but dad’s made it clear he doesn’t want me involved.”

“And that’s stopping you?” Ha...nope, “Or are you embarrassed you lost your head and tried to inflict maximum damage on your dad?” She glares, “Or maybe jealous your dad is about to drop his considerable influence behind people that aren’t you? Because he thinks that you don’t want to see him,” Her glare intensifies but he holds up his hands, “I’m just saying, he’s upstairs now with the other Avengers,” Cas is aware, “It’s as good a time as any to go up and talk to him while also showing the Avengers that this is your home first.”

Ohhh, that’s tempting, “That’s cheating,” Also, “And I doubt they’re aware enough to notice.” She would love to show that she can take priority at any time she chooses….And jealousy is a strong word. These people are just coming in and getting her father’s time….not important.

“It’s you, Cassie. If you want them too then they’ll notice.”

Valid.

~~~

Rhodey takes a trip up the elevator with her. That’s not the funny part though, no, the funny part is that Jarvis literally takes them up without asking which floor they need. Her eavesdropping little brother was not minding his own business. Adorable.

She squares her shoulder and pastes one of those ‘natural’ smiles on her face that isn't really natural. People just say that because they expect other people to look content by default. Rhodey sighs next to her but he asked for this.

When the door opens it’s to a flurry of activity as people are moving equipment around and making sure everything is ready to be...well, it’s an actual command center. She walks right in and past all that noise and towards what used to be an entirely pointless hologram conference table, with manipulable projections, and glass walls that double as additional displays. Now her father is in there with the new guests(well, Bruce already sometimes bunked in the Tower.).

Just cutting edge tech that her dad thought would be useful. Speaking of, “Hey dad!” She yells as her father is probably showing off how some of this stuff works, “You got a minute?” He reacts to her voice(...dad senses) and finds her in the room immediately. She approaches with her arms relaxed and makes it a point to not look at the Avengers in the fishbowl of a room.

Her father takes a moment to look her over before nodding, “Sure.” Then he turns to the Avengers, “We’re going to need the room.” Yes, they will. Cas grins at the Avengers in response and she’s not surprised at the smile and nod she gets from Thor or the small acknowledgement from Bruce. She is surprised at the cheeky smile she gets from Barton though...huh. Whatever, Katie and Austin both said he was weird and made really bad jokes so he probably found something funny.

Just as Rogers looks like he’s about to say something Rhodey steps in, “Actually Captain Rogers, there’s something I was hoping to discuss with you,” He holds out his hand, “Col. James Rhodes.” He does a magnificent job of maneuvering Rogers from the room before anything bad happens. The others follow after and when the door closes Cas suddenly starts to feel a lot more awkward. They’re kind of on display and she bets that more than one of the people milling around outside can read lips.

Her father must notice too, “Privacy mode, J.”

_ “Yes, sir.” _ The overhead lights brighten a bit but the windows darken like the ones in Malibu used to. 

The awkward doesn’t dissipate. Her father leans against the table with his hands in his pockets and Cas leans against the wall mirroring him. He’s not going to start first so she should, “I’m going to South Korea.” Judging by the drop in his expression that didn’t come across the way she meant it to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've gotten such a strong positive response from a story decision since my last chapter.
> 
> Like....thank you all so much.


	35. This Town is a Make-You Town(Or the Other Thing)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guys we made it once again!!
> 
> Thank you so much for all of your help. The kudos and comments make it possible to keep going because I can see that you're reading.
> 
> :D
> 
> At this point in time though, I do need to take a little break. Not a long one. Maybe like two weeks. I started writing Child of Nike last June and I never really took a break from it. I have an outline so this story is in no way abandoned but just a little break for the sake of it. Gotta keep the creative juices flowing.

“I’m going to South Korea.” Judging by the drop in his expression that didn’t come across the way she meant it to so she’s quick to keep talking, “See the Cradle would be great for if one of the very human Avengers gets injured but Helen’s never going to let me take the original prototype from Seoul...so I need to make another one,” How did she end up looking at the floor instead of her father? “It needs to be modified to be user friendly, mobile. It takes a ton of power right now. Not really an issue where it is but it requires a trained team to monitor….” She trails off and gives up.

Thankfully her father understands, “That would be helpful. We have a medical team but what you and Helen built blows them out of the water.” 

“Aw shucks,” She smiles but the awkwards trails back in.

“I should’ve told you right away,” Her father says after a pause, “I thought that if I explained about Rogers and the Avengers after it would be enough.”

Yeah, his timing sucked but at least he told her. He’s improved by comparison to how he was when they met, “I didn’t exactly handle the information gracefully.” Is her concession is this case.

Her father gets this look on his face then. It’s pain. Her father’s in pain, not physical pain, but he’s in pain and she is responsible for causing it. Something awful twists in her gut at that, “I shouldn’t have said that to you. It was wrong and I’m sorry.” How many people can say that they’ve received genuine apologies from her father? It’s probably somewhere in the realm of four people.

“I’m sorry too. I wish I hadn’t said that,” But it’s not like she can actually take it back.

“It’s not exactly untrue,” He says, “My dad was in Captain America’s corner from the get go.”

Pshh. And this is where Cas screwed up and used words to attack her own father last time, “You’re not in Captain America’s corner, old man. He happens to be going the same way you are.”

“Still,” He shrugs, “The guy can’t be all bad. He was helpful against the Chitauri.” Initially her father was the one who decided that irritating Rogers was a worthwhile form of entertainment and she was the one trying to give him a chance. 

So….sure, “Can we stop talking about Steve Rogers? Because I’m still working on that whole Elsa ‘Let It Go’ thing.” Cas actually has sound reasoning behind her current dislike but holding onto it is a waste of brain power. He’s really not worth the effort.

He nods but then her father points at her, “When’s the last time we overhauled your gear? Full makeover, top to bottom.” He motions for her to come closer. She takes her spot at his side as he pulls some ideas up on the table.

Ummm…, “2012? I’m not exactly in need of as many gadgets during a fight as some are.” Iron Man is the multitool of weaponry. It’s not like they’re going to get anything-

“Maybe, but how about some more monitoring and sensors for the interactive system to work off of,” What? Her father continues talking but Cas locks on to that first part.

“My armor is just armor. It doesn’t have it’s own interactive system,” She cuts him off as he’s discussing the benefits of an intuitive system augmenting her already enhanced reaction times.

“Yet,” He’s still pulling up files that look very tempting and it’s nice to see that her father’s been thinking about giving her an upgrade. She hasn’t really thought about it, “I...I don’t want to.... Just...hear me out before you say anything.” Her father waits for a response from her.

So she obliges, “Okay.”

He waits a moment as if to see if she’ll really stay quiet then he continues, “The last few months have proven that Jarvis has limitations in what he can handle,” That’s very true. It really sucked to have those limitations placed on her when Jarvis couldn’t keep up with the demand of purging Hydra. They made it work but Cas felt like she was back in the Stone Ages of before Stark tech at certain points, “This little War on Hydra will likely put a similar strain on him but I’m going to need all of the processing power I can get on intel and everything we’re doing up here.” All of this makes sense so she’s just trying to find where it’s leading…, “I need to pull Jarvis from Lamark High-Rise and Camp Half-Blood.” Oh...her father is taking her brother to war with him and leaving her behind.

Right, she nods. Cas would rather Jarvis be able to focus on her father and Hydra. They can make do without Jarvis being in the camp and such. That was more of an experiment anyway to give Jarvis more time with people that wouldn’t be afraid of him or treat him like Siri, “Sure, when’s he leaving?”

“A week,” That’s not very long, “It’ll give him enough time to show his little sister the ropes.” Huh? That earns her father a very confused look from her. Back in the early days when her father was still coming to terms with her existence there was a bit of confusion regarding the way Cas viewed Jarvis. The idea of a brain child is not strange to Cas and Javis is a person by her standards ergo Jarvis is her younger brother.

Her father at first was weirded out by this but he came around. Jarvis was designed as a user interface for his chronically quiet home and he developed a personality over the years to become who he is now, “Repeat that last, please.” However, Cas is most assuredly the older sister.

Now her father’s responding smile is tinged with pride, “Friday, come introduce yourself.”

Some displays take on a pink hue distinct from the blue that Cas and her father work in as well as the yellow of Jarvis,  _ “Hello demi-boss,” _ Alright then. The voice is feminine and with an accent she’d like to identify as Irish. Sadly, Cas can’t say she’s met any Irish people making this a guess,  _ “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” _

She looks at her father first but he’s leaning back against the table far more relaxed than he was at the start of this conversation, “Hi Friday, it’s really nice to meet you too.” She laughs a little bit because this is so cool, “I hope I can get you to call me Cassandra at least. Jarvis is too uptight to change his ways.”

Jarvis doesn’t let her get away with talking about him,  _ “I was programmed to mimic the mannerisms of my namesake.” _

“Whatever,” She - and everyone who knows Jarvis - is aware that he is perfectly capable of calling people whatever he wants. He just has that purely English(British television anyway) ability to be unerringly polite while simultaneously implying that a person is a moron, “Tell me a bit about yourself, Friday.”

There’s a brightening of certain displays before Friday plunges in,  _ “I am a learning interface intended to assist and protect but more importantly adapt and develop.” _ Friday’s stiffer than Jarvis like there’s less person behind her. She’s young and hasn’t hashed out who she is yet.

Amazing, “She’s amazing,” Cas laughs and grins at her father. 

“I thought so,” Her father says and it’s so easy to hear how happy he is that his creation is acknowledged, “Friday’s more advanced than Jarvis was when he first started but she’s still a little rough around the edges.”

Well, “She is the new baby in the family,” If it’s possible the programs being run by Friday bristle indignantly. She could be wrong though, “I’m sure Jarvis can help her and I’ll show her around too. Introduce her to the right people. Leo would love to meet her.”

Friday excitedly speaks up then, _“Leonidas Valdez was consulted to aid in expression of more complex emotions. I look forward to testing my ability to ‘take a joke’ around his peers.”_ If there’s Valdez humor in there then it’s probably cringe worthy. Okay, Cas grew to love all her family members but this snap decision by her heart is made without her consent. Cas loves this new little AI that her father is trusting her to look after.

She side eyes her father, “You’ve been really busy.”

Her father is unrepentant in this case, “So have you.” Rightfully so. She’s honestly surprised that Leo managed to keep his mouth shut about this. This isn’t a few weeks of work. It’s more like months even if Friday is based on Jarvis. Her father must have seen the need for Jarvis to have someone to share responsibility with(It’s possible that Friday emerged from an edited back up).

“Yeah,” She sighs, “When you’re out there be careful and don’t rush just to end this whole thing a few months faster. Hydra isn’t just a group. It’s an ideology. Those are really hard to destroy. Case and point,” She points to herself. Demigods exist because of living ideas that wouldn’t fade despite a loss of believers and violent persecutions.

“Worried about your dear old dad?” Her father smiles a rare soft smile at her, “Don’t be. We’ve both taken on a lot worse than elitist humans.”

About that, “Remember that well intentioned but ultimately a failure of an evening when I got you to watch Supernatural?”

“You mean that incredibly chilling episode where the humans hunted other humans for sport?”

“Exactly,” Dean had it right, “People are crazy. The monsters are monstrous because they’re monsters. They’re predictable like that. People? Not so much.” Notable exceptions exist like Tyson and cyclopses of Poseidon’s forges but they're just that. Exceptions.

“Believe me, I know that,” He sighs but makes a visible effort to shake all this off, “Come on,” He throws an arm around her neck and begins to lead her from the room, “Let’s go save Rhodey from the onslaught of American virtue,” Cas snorts, “We need him. Then we can show Friday what we do in the workshops.”

Steal her father’s time further? Sure, “Oooh, we need to talk about the possibility of expanding the Oracle Cloud. The DSN is great and NASA has been very free with giving me access but their dishes are so fixed. It’s limiting.” The German branch will appreciate this.

“That sounds like a worthwhile use of my time.”

Yes.

All’s right in the world.

Cas waits in the periphery as her father goes to finagle Rhodey back over to them. She wasn’t exactly expecting to be approached by anyone but she’s not disappointed when Bruce and Thor take advantage of the opportunity to talk, “Cassandra! It is good to see you again our last conversation ended rather-”

“Heated?” Cas cuts in, “I didn’t exactly handle that one very well.”

“It’s all pretty understandable,” Bruce responds quietly. It’s weird. He was louder before, “You didn’t say anything I wasn’t thinking about in there.” Then why didn’t he say it? 

Thor’s hand falls onto Bruce’s shoulder and the whole man rocks from the force of it but he stays standing implying that Thor was being gentle, “Your position regarding Captain Rogers’s assault on Hydra was most informative,” Oh? “I should thank you for I nearly made an error reminiscent of my banishment.” That’s a story that Cas hasn’t heard yet, “I, myself, nearly started a war by initiating a conflict in a foreign realm.” Cas just sort of blinks at that….Point Break went to a planet, picked a fight, and nearly started a war….but he almost made the same mistake again. She knows. Cas knows Thor isn’t  _ stupid _ but like...well, at least Jane thinks he’s pretty because he’s lacking some common sense. Though it has to be getting annoying to Jane that Thor will just leave Earth for weeks or even months at a time at the drop of a hat.

Still, this would have been in 2010 which isn’t a long time for a millenia old being.

Bruce agrees, “Right…,” Then he shakes his head and looks back to Cas, “We’ll both be in reserve if the others really need help. We don’t know if Hydra has any surprises,” Fair enough, if Cas ran a secret spy cult from within a secret spy organization she’d probably have some secret extra resources in case the main ones were compromised. “But I don’t want the ‘Other Guy’ running around and making a mess unless I feel it’s necessary.” That’s a vast improvement over never wanting to transform at all but….

Cas nods, “I get that. Well, if you need me once the Scepter’s located then I’m not hard to find.” She’s hesitant to okay the….application(?) of the Hulk to any kind of battle other than one of attrition but he’s Bruce’s cross to bare. He should get to make the final call on whether or not he thinks it’s worth it.

“Regarding the Scepter,” And there’s Thor’s one minute of tact for the entire day, “I intend to remove it to Asgard’s vaults after it is recovered. Time has proven that humans cannot be trusted to use it responsibly.”

Accurate but that still leaves two incredibly powerful objects on the planet one of which is still a mystery, “I’m cool with that. I really didn’t like it anyway.” Asgard can have the glowstick of destiny.

~~~

Cas kind of feels like she time traveled.

Not literally because she has all of her modern accommodations and such but situationally she feels like she has a bit. Back when her father was secretly dying, he would drop work on her that he knew someone would need to pick up after he was gone and he’d decided she was good enough. Then he would take off and randomly appear on TV in unexpected places.

Looking back, it’s kind of flattering but at the time it was mostly exhausting because she had a lot of work that wasn’t the kind of work she was used to doing….like talking to project planning teams. They’re mean. Or they were. Now they just sit there and listen when she has something to say but when she started? No, she had to earn their respect. They still poke and prod at her ideas but they don’t assume she’s incompetent.

It was the same for the better part of 2012 where the various suits, badges, and uniforms were taking the measure of the new thing, in that case, demigods with a hierarchical structure and combat experience. She was lucky in that she had her father, Rhodey, and a lot of public support to ease her into dealing with that kind of work.

But back to the time travel thing.

In an effort to guarantee secrecy, Cas and the rest of her family are not in the loop with regards to where the Avengers are immediately going at any time. They don’t find out until after the fighting starts along with everyone else. Truthfully, if Cas wanted to know where her father was she could find out. There are protocols in place that guarantee her access to the suit’s navigation data but she’s trying to respect the line between the Avengers and Stark Industries. It’s blurred and nebulous but Cas and Pepper are working very hard to guarantee that the world knows that they are two separate entities.

They’re just hosting the Avengers until such a time that the rest of the world jumps on the bandwagon to beat down the bad guys alongside the group working to ‘privatize world peace.’ She really hopes that’s soon(Seriously, whenever you’re ready to help, Planet Earth, just hop on in).

Anyway, Cas has no idea where her father is flying off to with the Avengers until she sees a story pop up on the news at which point she enjoys the relief of seeing Iron Man rocket through the sky occasionally flanked by an Iron Legionnaire. The others are there too but she doesn’t actually care that much...sue her. Occasionally Thor and Bruce are there as well but those are few and far between. While this is occurring she’s actively taking over her father’s work within the company.

Fun times but needs must and she’s available. She was also able to rig up a significantly less impressive Cradle for the Avengers to use(That took the better part of eight weeks). It’s more like a spot treatment instead of a box that a patient gets dropped in for a full workup. It’s slower but smaller and shouldn’t require a full team to monitor while it’s in use. Perfect for emergency medical treatment purposes. Helen’s not exactly pleased with her because in her words ‘interventions like the Cradle will be responsible for saving more lives down the line than some action movie battle sequence.’ She’d prefer Cas be in South Korea with her focusing exclusively on the original Cradle project rather than everything else on her plate. Which is fair but Cas has responsibilities keeping her primarily in New York right now which are consistently tearing into her sleep schedule. Her blood is more caffeine than hemoglobin now.

There have been some unfortunate conflicts within the company since the former Shield people came in. It’s 2015. It’s been over four years since Cas came into the picture and many college aged demigods have unsurprisingly aimed for first jobs or internships within Stark Industries. They have more than just an R&D department for interns to polish their skills and network in. Point is, the Shield people stand out and demigods are reasonably put on edge by them.

It’s gotten to the point where Cas had to attend a sensitivity training seminar to guarantee the demigods on staff went because it’s not appropriate to call a potentially PTSD riddled former spy double-O loser, Brittany. It’s not okay to insult or antagonize any members of staff and as long as everyone is in Stark Industries then there cannot be any divisions like that. If Cas could help heal and develop relations with the Romans then she can find a way to make this work too.

Hopefully. 

America’s new Secretary of Defense is doing his best to make her life hell everytime there’s a clip on the news of the Avengers exploding something. The good news is that most of the conflicts have been well contained and in isolated areas far from concentrated civilian populations. She’s hoping that this is a coincidence and not a genuine strategy from Rogers because if he hits all the low risk areas first Hydra’s going to notice and actively choose to bunker down near civilians to make the Avengers fumble in their advance...but that’s not her problem. She has to trust that her father won’t allow any egregious errors to occur. On the Ross front though, the good news is that most Americans aren’t overly concerned because their heroes are blowing things up on foreign soil. His caterwauling about the dangers of enhanced running around without a chain of command to censure them is mostly ignored(Cas is fairly certain he just wants to be the one holding the reins). He’ll continue to be ignored so long as the Avengers consistently provide desirable results on their own.

Regardless, Friday’s youth and immediate exposure to demigod young adults has led Cas to encourage her to learn humanity through the lens of social media. Friday promptly developed a subroutine devoted to internet stalking publically available posts in the camp of ‘register the enhanced’ and the smaller but still terrifyingly existent faction in favor of internment. Cas doesn’t know if she prefers that mindset or the burn the witches sentiments of the Middle Ages. All of them are crazy but the fact remains that those views exist, they aren’t going anywhere, and all she can do is remain informed and several dozen steps ahead of them.

After all, President Ellis likes her and her family. She kind of helped save his life. He’s only in office until January of 2017 though so she has to hope that his successor is a reasonable man that picks a more relaxed cabinet than Thunderbolt Ross.

It’s all a lot and she’s grateful that her friends are going to be coming into their degrees soon so whichever ones choose to can help alleviate some of this on a more permanent basis. For now, she’ll keep telling herself that she’s dealt with significantly worse than an asshole calling her ‘the greatest weapon Tony Stark ever had a hand in making.’ It’s fine. Cas is well aware of who and what she is. She knows the potential for what she could do with everything at her fingertips and comforts herself with the notion that she wants exactly none of those things her detractors say she could do.

In more pleasant(depends on how you look at it actually) news, after a Colorado based request for help from the Iron Legion to look for some people swept up in an avalanche worked out very well, France and Switzerland put out feelers to see if they could do the same should the need arise. Cas about vibrated with joy in her seat as she took that call. Stopping a monster is great and so is saving the world but founding a potentially global initiative that will save thousands annually is very gratifying. She told her father years ago that if she ever managed to successfully integrate the demigods she would want to make things that made the world better. So she is.

Things are happening. She’s a very busy human being but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s also ready to get the fuck out of these shoes she’s wearing and into something she can workout in which is why she’s heading to her office after having Friday switch the elevator music to something more interesting(The New Style. Beastie Boys. 1986. Highly Recommend). The end of her elevator concert is cut off by Friday,  _ “Uh Cassandra? There are some surprise guests trying to head up to your office.” _ Huh?

It didn’t take long for Friday to learn that Cas isn’t exactly a fan of surprises, “Oh yeah?” It’s kind of funny actually. That’s the first thing Friday really locked onto about Cas, “Who in town could get an unscheduled office visit at...8:28 PM?”

_ “There are coppers downstairs.” _

Cas blinks.

Well then. 

That’s new, “Uh? Are we thinking ‘lawyer up’?”

_ “They have some questions regarding an open investigation. I could look into which one exactly.” _

Tempting. Very tempting, “Maybe later, Friday. I’ll talk with them,” But Cas isn’t looking to actually descend into supervillaindom. Cas instead takes a moment to make sure she’s presentable in the reflective surface of the elevator. When the door opens to her floor she makes her way to her office at a comfortable and unrushed pace while happily acknowledging the familiar faces she passes on the way there.

It only takes a few minutes more for two police officers to make their way up and honestly Cas feels a little nervous in that small teenage demigod part of her brain that remembers cops being  _ dangerous _ . She remembers Luke teaching her to slip handcuffs along with other practical life skills. When they enter they just look like this isn’t going to be a fun time because they’re not just police. They’re detectives.

And suddenly Cas is very concerned that some dumbass in Camp Half-Blood went and got themselves caught doing something they really shouldn’t have been doing. Still, they’re supposed to just be here for questions and Cas doesn’t know of anyone getting up to anything, “Detectives,” She greets with a business smile, “How can I help you this evening?”

“Dr. Stark,” The slightly older, graying detective says, “I’m Detective Maloney and this is my partner,” He motions towards the other shorter but probably younger by ten years officer, “Detective Decker. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us this evening. I know it’s short notice.”

Uh-huh….they don’t look very apologetic but whatever. She probably reads like an unnecessary complication for these guys, “Not a problem. Have a seat and let's see if I can answer your questions for you.” She’s somewhat okay with that. Despite her lighthearted comments towards the boys in blue(and women) during the post-Chitauri talks, police are still something that prior experience has her wishing to avoid.

The younger officer sits first and hasn’t said anything yet but the older gentleman, “Are you familiar with the area around Pier 97?”

Sort of? “Over by 59th street? Can’t say I’ve spent a lot of time there,” It’s really tempting for her to slouch in her seat but she resists and sits properly. Hell’s Kitchen isn’t somewhere that really holds much interest to her although it is where Meg found Apollo in an alleyway. There’s also several ports that Stark Industries receives shipments from but Cas hasn’t been there in person.

There’s also the small detail that the Intrepid Museum kind of near there doubles as a Temple of Ares.

The detective nods, “There was an incident there last night. Human traffickers,” What? The officer seems calm and Cas resists the urge to interrupt, “The girls got away and flagged down an officer near 50th street,” That’s a long way for a mortal girl to run while terrified, “That’s not the problem.” Well, she would hope not, “They reported that they were rescued by a man in a mask that took down all of their captors,” Okay, “Four large and fully grown men.”

Right…, “Like Batman?”

Detective Decker takes offense, “This isn’t a joke. One man is drinking his meals for the foreseeable future. Another nearly drowned,” Definitely like Batman then….moral confliction abound. Truthfully, she’s uncomfortable with the idea of human trafficking but vigilantes are a very gray area she doesn’t particularly like. There’s been a lot of upheaval in the last few years but damn, “We want to know if any of your superpowered friends like to play dress up.”

...this is unexpected. Vigilantes are usually acting out their own revenge ideas without consideration for long term effects. It’s a high they get from superimposing their personal grievances on another person’s crimes. Now, getting an asshole off the street that police can’t seem to pin down is all well and good but it’s not like it’s a good idea. There’s a reason the guy has a mask on.

Cas is also really hoping that the shit with aliens, Nazis, and enhanced hasn’t left exploitable cracks in the foundation of her city. Social unrest can leave space for all sorts of crazies to find a niche and gather followers.

“We don’t want to make any assumptions,” Detective Maloney says, “But the injuries these guys sustained...their size. An ordinary man couldn’t have done that.”

“So you thought that maybe one of the nearby Half-Olympians got it in their head to play vigilante,” It’s a reasonable train of thought if one ignores the fact that demigods have plenty of things in their corner of reality to deal with. Plus, they’ve been busy not causing trouble since the Hydra stuff happened. 

Part of Cas’s brain is still stuck on the human trafficking thing. Pier 97 is not far away.

“We wanted to cover all the bases,” He continues as if Cas knows every enhanced fighter on the island, “Do you have any idea who could’ve done this?”

She does not, like at all, but Cas still takes a few seconds before answering because other people aren’t used to the speed she typically does things at, “Nope, but if I hear something from anywhere you’ll be the first to know.” They ask her a few other leading questions like if she knows of any demigods in the area. The answer to that is ‘no’ but there was a trip planned to the Intrepid museum off 49th.

When they leave after dropping a couple of cards on her desk (paper….she rarely uses paper anymore) Cas presses her palm into her eyes. Gods, this could be bad if people get it into their heads that a demigod is running around beating up mortal criminals, “Friday?”

_ “Yeah mini-boss?” _

Cas sighs, “Get me that file, please.” This isn’t a step towards supervilaindom. It’s Cas making sure an unknown doesn’t stir up trouble. 

A couple hours of reading through testimonials of traumatized young women and snide transcripts from the accused traffickers interviews and all Cas knows is that this is probably a male. The person wore all black, had a mask covering half of his face, was wicked fast, and ‘fights like a devil’.

Ugh.

So not helpful. Obviously, there’s no footage because why would there be? That would be convenient and nice. Still, “Hey Friday, you like buddy cop movies, right?”

_ “One man, one vote,” _ Friday happily quotes at her.

Oh gods, Cas has already made mistakes with regards to her baby sister’s education but Lethal Weapon 2 is not one of them, “Exactly, let’s find this malaka. If it’s a demigod I’m kicking their ass. If it’s not then we’ll figure it out.” As it happens, this masked dude that’s running around has more than one incident….strange that the detectives only brought up the human traffickers. Whatever. She does get a helpful map going of known locations that seem to focus in Hell’s Kitchen...that’s closer to home than Cas is strictly comfortable with.

She gets why the detectives considered the conspicuous enhanced population a hop skip and a jump away. Well, it’s on the other side of Manhattan from Lamark High-Rise so it’s not a literal hop but it’s still close….It’s barely a mile from Stark Tower. Cas doesn’t want to brag but….if she’s running just a mile then her best time is 168 s. But just that mile though. She’s not running a marathon at that speed.

...now which problem should she solve first? Chitauri weapons? Or baby Batman?

**Cassandra Stark Will Return In:** **The King of Syracuse**

**Sample:**

All things considered, this wasn’t the worst place that Cas has sat and waited in. It’s humid and the smell isn’t the most pleasant especially with the wind coming east from the Hudson. The smell is probably better up on her perch compared to the sidewalk down below though. Cas is seated roughly twelve storeys up with her feet dangling off the edge of an old brick and mortar building in Hell’s Kitchen. Based off of the data she has on her masked guy she knows that he’s likely to frequent this area given how often he beats the crap out of people in the surrounding area.

She’s getting kind of pressed to find him though. He’s a really slippery bastard. He avoids cameras somehow(not perfectly but a majority) so this is really more an exercise in extrapolating potential locations based on where he’s been and where he definitely isn’t, “Are we sure about this, Fri? It’s almost 3 AM.” It’s starting to become early instead of late and Cas has somewhere to be at 9. However, the recent article in the paper about Union Allied has Cas bristling. First a vigilante in Hell’s Kitchen and now some little shit is siphoning money out of funds meant for revamping the city after the Chitauri attack. Some of it came from the government, some of it was donations, and some of it came from the Maria Stark Foundation(Which is a donation but it’s money the Cas is directly involved in.).

_ “This location has the highest probability of coming in contact with the Hell’s Kitchen Devil.” _ She’s pretty sure it’s Devil of Hell’s Kitchen but whatever. He’s a true scourge of the criminal underworld if the online chatter about him is accurate. So he’s out here wailing on people but not drawing any news and media coverage. The police only lightly questioned Cas but it definitely didn’t look like they believed she wasn’t involved. They also didn’t seem smart enough to point her in the direction of this vigilante to help them track him down. Weird because Cas made it clear that demigods are friends to baseline humans. If they wanted her help in finding this guy they could’ve asked.

So she has surprise cops, a knockoff Batman, and an espionage scheme that’s taken millions of dollars away from people who need it to get their lives back together. Union Allied had contracts to rebuild businesses and homes but now it’s just gone poof and the funding was reallocated to other local businesses before Cas could butt her nose in and make sure it was done right this time. As someone who’s been picking up business from Pepper, this whole scenario looks rushed but all the work is above board. It’s all unusual but like...it’s New York so it kind of makes sense. 

If Cas goes down into the sewers and finds a talking rat with four turtle children all eating pizza she’d just accept it at this point. She used to think the mortal world was boring except for fast cars and fun tech but that was all very wrong.

“Okay,” She leans back on her palms and looks out over the city below her, “If I was an angry violent man with a bone to pick with criminals which rooftop would I brood on?”

_ “The one I selected has the highest probability of being traversed by the Hell’s Kitchen Devil.” _

Cas looks down again and focuses on the boisterous music spilling out of a small bar. It looks like a colorful place even if it’s not her style, “The atmosphere isn’t great for ruminating on shadows and gray scale morality. Remind me to suggest some behavior books for you to parse through,” Some loud laughter makes her focus on the other bar just a few doors down. Yeah, this isn’t the area for waiting. It’s more likely that this a pass through area in whatever route he typically takes around the neighborhood.

Or maybe she’s close to where the guy’s based himself….Devil Cave? Sure.

_ “You said books can teach next to nothing about how to people,” _ Friday is really coming along quickly.

“True,” They didn’t help Cas nearly as much as Chiron, Luke, and Silena did, “But it helps to know what you’re looking for.” Alright, she’s calling it. Weird, she was sure about this too however one of the bars has started playing Closing Time by Semisonic and she really does have somewhere to be in six hours, “We’ll try again some other-” Cas cuts herself off when there’s a dull thud behind her. 

Well, looks like she was right. Thanks Friday.

She casually looks over her shoulder to see a looming figure that isn’t actually all that looming. It’s dark and he’s in all back but Cas is familiar with quite a few children of Ares. The thick thermal he’s wearing is an ideal underlayer for the cushion it provides when wearing old celestial bronze armor. It’s also warm and durable fabric. Functional dark pants with many pockets and shiny snaps are held in place by a belt lacking an obvious or identifiable buckle. And those are military surplus boots. The thick gloves also add to the image.

Thermal, cargo pants, functional belt, padded gloves, and combat boots all fit the image of a normal dude looking to dress up as a vigilante. But what really ties it all together is cloth tied around his face. Can he see? It’s all clearly chosen for practicality’s sake without caring one wink about appearances. 

He’s a serious person not out looking for glory then.

Of course, the problem is that the man is scarcely 4 inches taller than her and that’s including the boost his heavy duty boots give him. He’s not big enough to intimidate her. 

“Why are you looking for me?” And he intentionally tries to deepen his voice.

Adorable. But….

That’s a little arrogant, “What makes you think you’re the Dark Knight I’m looking for?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do not get too attached to that title. 
> 
> It's subject to change at this point in time.
> 
> A note on how the Avengers team is different now:
> 
> Thor knows more of Cas and Tony and is closer to them. Partially because he enjoys being around demigods as they're hardier folk than most midgardians. At this point, he hasn't really interacted with Cap, Barton, and Romanoff outside of the job. Cas also employs and watches out for Jane Foster and Co. which leads him to trust the Stark camp a bit more(He's probably been subjected some of Selvig's rants about the Phase 2 weapons at this point). The reason he didn't interfere when Cas was arguing with Rogers is that he saw it as two different leaders having a disagreement. Based on Thor: TDW, Odin thought he was about ready to be king so I would assume Thor is capable of wisdom and patience. Then again....Odin's parenting skills....
> 
> Bruce is confident and comfortable in and around Start Tower because no one minds that he's the Hulk. Tony Stark flies around in a suit of armor. Cassie Stark is a prominent leader of a hero race. Everyone there is like 'ah yessss, another brilliant and strange one.' However, at this point in time he doesn't actually know Cap, Barton, and Romanoff so when they came in and were like 'let's hurl the Hulk at Hydra' he was understandably discomforted. The is especially true when one takes into consideration the fact that Fury promised Bruce was only on call for his intellect. (*ahem* Bullshit *ahem*) The reason Bruce didn't interfere during the argument that day is that he felt cornered two but he has 'nope the fuck out' instincts instead of argue and fight instincts like Cas.
> 
> TONY STARK in the MCU defined himself as being Iron Man. That is who he was and many of his conflicts with he people stemmed from his inability to balance this with the rest of his life. Take for example in Iron Man 3, Pepper couldn't understand how vital Tony's connections to his suits were but when Endgame came around he had made one just for her. However, my Tony Stark is not like this. He is Father/Partner/Friend/Iron Man and all of the other things that make up Tony Stark. He doesn't feel the need to prove his worth as Iron Man or be a hero to make up for his past failures. Well...maybe somewhat but redemption is no longer his primary motivator. He already knows he's been redeemed and he knows how good he has it. Instead he's more in the realm of this is my zone, my people, my stuff keep way the hell back. He's surrounded by a support system in my story (because he hecking earned it) and in my eyes is significantly more stable as a result.
> 
> Steven Grant Rogers is not a bad guy. He's a hard headed self-righteous drowning man who made a bad decision out of fear. It's going to bite him in the ass but because I feel for Bucky I'll probably find a way to redeem him. Rogers is a soldier who always wanted to be a soldier because his dad was a soldier. He believes in standing up to bullies but somehow came to the conclusion that the only way to stand up to bullies is violently. I'm going to blame all of that on 1940s 'men don't cry culture.' Him going after Hydra in the MCU could have any number of reasons. He could actually feel it's the right thing to do. He could be trying to squish it like a particularly agile fly. He could be digging for info on Bucky. It could be a combination of all three or none of those. I do know that a lot of his decisions post-Avengers are dumb. The first of which was signing on with Shield.
> 
> The super spies are spies and assassins. Yes, Clint has a family and yes, Natasha is Auntie Nat to them but they're assets that are pointed at the enemy and make questionable decisions to get the job done. They worked for Shield for years and never noticed Hydra. When I was little 12/13 yo me and I saw ScarJo take out a hallway of bad guys in Iron Man 2 before Favreau could take out one my mind was blown. Now....I like Scarlett Johansson but I don't like the Black Widow all that much because of the choices she makes later on in the MCU. I mean don't get me wrong, she was a great hero in Endgame who actually made a legit sacrifice. Maybe after her movie comes out I'll change my mind. Clint though....dude we have some many problems with him in this house. It's mostly the broken back comment from Civil War but that hasn't happened yet and maybe it never will with regards to my story. That's mostly because Clint is a dad too and he sees a bunch of superpowered kids running around doing their best and is like 'this may as well happen.' That's my hope anyway because I feel like if an actual parent person sees a ton of kids that have it rough they'd try to help.


End file.
